40 
curious mode of treatment they adopted towards the 
latter (the platanus), which was brought from Persia: 
they usually fed it with wine instead of water; believing 
tills tree loved that liquor as well as those who used to 
drink under its shade.” It was customary with them to 
crown themselves with flowers at their festival meetings, 
which garlands were bound together with slips of the 
inner rind of the lime-tree. 
Horace thus alludes to it: — 
“ Ribands from the linden-tree 
Give a wreath no charms tor me. ” 
By fanciful critics it is considered an emblem of 
conjugal love, because of the old story of Baucis and 
Philemon; who,—having most hospitably entertained 
Jupiter when every other door was shut against him, — 
when life became a burden to them, were changed into 
lime-trees, and were placed on either side of the entrance 
to his temple. 
But to return from fancies to realities. The specimen 
delineated was taken from a venerable tree in Matlock 
parish, which gives the name of Lime-tree Bank to the 
immediate neighbourhood where it "rows. The trunk 
is quite hollow ; but otherwise there is little appearance 
of decay, as the branches are still vigorous and healthy. 
