206 



The Flora of Wiltshire. 



are. mucilaginous and emollient, and are said to be destitute of all 

 unwholesome qualities. 



ORDER. TILIACE2E. (JUSS.) 

 Tilia, (Linn.) Lime Tree. 

 Linn. CI. xiii. Ord. i. 



Name. From the Saxon Lind, German Linde, a lime tree; which 

 is probably so named from the extreme softness and lightness of the 

 wood, linde being an obsolete or poetic word for gelind, soft or 

 yielding. The quotations from Dryden in Johnson's Dictionary, 

 art: "Linden," are much in favour of this derivation. 



T. europma, (Linn.) European or Common Lime-tree, Linden- 

 tree, Bast. Engl. Bot. t. 610. Loudon's Arboretum, P. 63. " T. 

 intermedia" (D. C.) 



Locality. Plantations, naturalized in the county. Tree, Fl % 

 July. Area, 1. 2. 3. 4, 5. Distributed throughout all the Districts, 

 in plantations, parks and pleasure grounds. A common avenue or 

 lawn tree, "its flowers at dewy eve distilling odours." 



Of this beautiful genus, more remarkable for the stately growth 

 than the value of its timber, and for the delicate fragrance of its 

 blossoms and ample foliage, we possess no evidence to prove that the 

 present species is truly indigenous in Wiltshire, but has become 

 naturalized ; and that its introduction must have taken place at a 

 very recent period, for neither Ray or Aubrey make any mention 

 of this tree in their " Notes on the Natural History of the county." 

 The Common Lime or Linden is distributed in woods over nearly 

 the whole of Europe except the extreme North, extending East- 

 ward across Russian Asia to the Altai; it is much planted in Britain, 

 and is probably truly wild in Southern and Western England, 

 and perhaps in Ireland. It is a handsome long-lived tree, attaining 

 sometimes as much as 120 feet in height, but generally not above 

 half that size. The leaves which are broadly heart-shaped or 

 nearly orbicular, vary much in the degree of down on their under 

 surface and on the fruit, in the greater or less prominence of the 

 five filiform ribs of the fruit, etc. The truly indigenous form in 

 Northern Europe is always a small leaved one. The large leaved 



