54 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



the sighing breezes with delightful odours, — 

 in vain were its agreeable shade and pretty um- 

 bels offered as a ransom to appease Fashion, 

 offended by the litter of its % parly falling 

 foliage ; her influence was too great, and the 

 lime bowed its noble head to the axe of Folly, 

 leaving its thinly scattered offspring to the 

 protection of Obscurity, until Reason return 

 to resume his administration. Monsieur 

 Louis Liger remarks, in 1703, that the lime, 

 or linden-tree, was then gone out of fashion 

 in the French plantations, being supplanted 

 in favour by the hornbeam and the elm. But 

 our celebrated nurserymen, London and Wise, 

 tell us, in 1706, that it was then more in use 

 in England than any other tree " for stand- 

 ards and espaliers, having found the inconve- 

 nience of planting elms near the fruit trees, 

 or good plants ; because the roots of the elm 

 impoverish all the ground where they grow." 

 This tree is the 3>/Aupa (philyra) of the Greek 

 writers, and the Tilia of the Latin authors. 

 It is thought that the Greeks named it Phi- 

 lyra, because the inner bark formed thin 

 sheets on which they anciently wrote, instead 

 of parchment or paper. The Latin name is 

 supposed to be derived from ti\ov 9 which 

 signifies a feather, because the flowers of this 

 tree are produced from a kind of tongue. 



