47 



ing a fine Plane that girthed 16ft. with an estimated height of 

 70ft. There are not many planes in gardens in Bournemouth. 

 There is a group on the Horse Shoe Common, planted about 

 seventeen years ago, doing fairly well. 



Limes. 



The small-leaved lime is an undoubted native but is not com- 

 mon in this district. Sir Herbert Maxwell claims that the correct 

 English name is "line" or "linden tree" — linden being the 

 adjectival form of the Anglo-Saxon lind. The root meaning of the 

 word according to this authority is " smooth," referring to the 

 "texture of the wood. There are many specimens of the small- 

 leaved lime in England, but it is nowhere so large as the common 

 lime. There are numerous fine avenues of the latter. A very 

 notable one in Hants is at Stratton Park (Lord Northbrook's). 

 The lime is tolerant of drought, parching heat and a smoky atmos- 

 phere, and on that account it has been largely used in street plant- 

 ing. The fine limes in the Cathedral Close at Winchester " afford 

 a felicitous association of foliage with noble architecture." 



The White Lime (Tilia tomentosa) and the Pendant Silver 

 Lime (T. petioldris) are very ornamental trees. 



Hornbeam. 



This is a somewhat uncommon tree in this district except in 

 one or two localities where it occurs in hedges. The timber is 

 reported to be the hardest, , heaviest and toughest. It competes 

 with foreign wood in the pianomakers' trade, while its firm tex- 

 ture, resembling that of ivory or horn, renders it excellent for fine 

 action work. Mr. Elwes has drawn attention to "the beautiful 

 tree of Hornbeam growing at Heron Court, near the front en- 

 trance." He gives its measurements as follows: 70ft. in height, 

 10ft. 5m. in girth, with a spread of umbrage of 25 yards. A 

 measurement lately made by Mr. Trentham Maw gives a girth of 

 11ft. at 3ft. 6in. from the ground. 



Yew. 



There* is probably no native tree except the oak that is re- 

 garded with greater veneration than the yew. Owing to the prac- 

 tice continued from the earliest times of planting yews near 

 ancient temples and later in churchyards, they have become very 

 closely associated with our national life and folk-lore. 



The yew is remarkable for forming an enormously thick 

 trunk, which is clothed with a red-brown peeling bark, and 

 crowned with a rounded and wide-spreading head of branches. 

 The foliage is thick, dark and glossy, anctgives the yew a charac- 

 teristic sombre appearance. Shakespeare speaks of it as the 

 " dismal yew," Sir Walter Scott refers to "a grove of sable 

 yews," while Tennyson speaks of its " thousand years of gloom," 

 and assigns to it the pious duty of " warden of buried bones." 

 The seed of the yew is enclosed in a fleshy red, and sometimes 



