THE LIME-TREE. 



167 



forms,* which are distinguished principally by the 

 size and smoothness (or the reverse) of their leaves. 

 They are all natives of the middle and north of 

 Europe, but the small-leaved species alone is 

 considered to be indigenous to Britain. Though 

 all these kinds have long become naturalized, we 

 rarely see them growing in places where there is 

 no room for suspicion that they may have been 

 originally planted ; yet there is, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Worcester, on the authority of Mr. 

 Edwin Lees, a wood, remote from any old dwell- 

 ing or public road, of above five hundred acres 

 in extent, the greater part of the undergrowth of 

 which is composed of the small-leaved Lime. 

 There are also in the same part of the country, 

 trees estimated to be upward of three hundred 

 years old. 



The Lime is a large tree, characterized by its 

 pyramidal shape, by the multiplicity of its long, 

 slender, and upright branches, which start from 

 the main stem not many feet from the base, and 

 by the unbroken surface presented by its abun- 

 dant foliage. These characters give to half- 

 grown trees, in which- they are most conspicuous, 

 a stiff and formal appearance, especially if they 

 happen to be planted in rows. Li older spe- 

 cimens, the weight of the lower branches fre- 

 quently bends them down to the ground, so as 

 entirely to conceal the trunk ; the middle part of 

 the tree is thus thrown open, and the pyramidal 

 outline destroyed ; the summit too becomes 

 somewhat more tufted. Under these circum- 

 stances the Lime is a stately and even pic- 

 turesque tree, especially when standing alone 



* Tilia EuropcBa, T. platyphylla^ and T,parvifolia. 



