When we speak of a lime tree we conform to a corrupt usage, for the right English name is "line" or "linden tree," linden being the adjectival form of the Anglo-Saxon "lind," just as "asp" and "oak" give the adjectives "aspen" and "oaken." The late Professor Skeat, foremost authority in English etymology, observed that "the change from 'line' to 'lime' does not seem to be older than about A.D. 1700"; but he overlooked the use of the modern form by John Evelyn, who, in his Sylva (1664), writes always of "the lime tree or linden," showing that the change had taken place between his day and Shakespeare's.

Prospero. ... Say, my spirit,
How fares the King and his?
Ariel. Confin'd together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.
(Tempest, Act v. sc. 1.)

The root meaning of the word is "smooth," referring to the texture of the timber, which caused it of old to be in great request for making shields, so that in Anglo-Saxon lind meant a shield, as well as being the name of the tree.

It is strange that Tennyson, so sensitive to delicacy of sound, should have used the modern form in his frequent mention of the tree. Only one instance comes to mind of his preferring the more musical dissyllable. When Amphion set the forest dancing—

The Linden broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreaths that bind her,
And down the middle—buzz! she went,
With all her bees behind her.

The limes form a somewhat perplexing family, inasmuch as, of the score or so of species recognised by botanists, several cannot be reputed as more than hybrids or sports. The only species claimed as indigenous to Britain is the small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata), and even about this botanists are not of a certain mind. For instance, the joint authors of The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland have formed different opinions, Dr. Henry considering it to be "a native of England, ranging from Cumberland southward," while Mr. Elwes fails to reconcile this with the facts that no fossil remains of this tree have been identified in the British Isles, and that he has never been able to find, or to find anybody else who has found, a self-sown seedling.

There are many fine specimens of the small-leaved lime in England, ranging from 80 to 110 feet high; but it has never been known to attain the dimensions of the common lime (T. europÆa), which, although it is an exotic species, has made itself thoroughly at home between the Straits of Dover and the Moray Firth, and is the tree which those who do not scrupulously discriminate regard as the lime tree par excellence.

It would require much space to mention all the notable limes in our country, for they were very extensively planted 200 or 300 years ago, and, being long-lived, many of them have grown to great size. Mr. Elwes gives the palm to the lime grove at Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine park in Hertfordshire. These trees were planted in 1660, and average 120 feet in height and 10 feet in girth. They have been grown in a close row, only 12 to 15 feet apart, and have thereby escaped the defects to which limes are so prone as ornamental trees—namely, spreading to ungainly breadth instead of rising to height, and covering their trunks with an unsightly mass of brush.

At Knole Park, in Kent, advantage has been taken of this spreading habit to allow the formation of a very remarkable grove. The parent tree was described by Loudon as covering a quarter of an acre in 1820; the boughs have drooped so as to root themselves, and have risen again, forming trees 80 and 90 feet high, which in their turn have repeated the process, forming a second circle of trees 20 to 40 feet high, and these again are engaged in forming a third concentric circle, the total diameter of the grove, all connected with the central stem, being 36 yards. The great lime at Gordon Castle, known as the Duchess's Tree, has behaved in a similar way; but, as the supplementary growths have not been trained into trees as at Knole, the whole forms a dense thicket, impenetrable save where a passage has been kept clear to the interior. A tree of this description covers almost enough ground, if not for a small holding, at least for an allotment, for the total circumference of this mass of branches is 480 feet or 160 yards.

It is as an avenue tree that the lime is seen at its best, disputing pre-eminence for that purpose with the beech. Moreover, although the beech must be accounted the more beautiful tree, its rival has advantage over it in the delicious fragrance of its blossom, which is produced in great profusion, powerfully attractive to bees. Strange to say, although the fragrant flowers are of a pale yellowish, greenish white, the honey extracted from them is deep brown, darker than heather honey, and of inferior flavour.

Fine avenues of limes are innumerable in Britain, many of them being over 200 years old. At Newhouse Park, Devon, Mr. Elwes describes a remarkable one, which was planted about 200 years ago as an approach to a house which never was built. The rows are only 20 feet apart, and the trees, which are only 10 feet apart in the rows, have risen to an immense height, averaging over 120 feet.

Among other notable lime avenues may be noted those at Stratton Park, Hants (Lord Northbrook's); Cassiobury, Herts (Lord Essex's), said to have been planted by Le Notre, the designer of the gardens at Versailles; at Braxted Park, Essex (Mr. Du Cane's), composed of three rows on each side; at Wollaton Hall, Notts, and Birdsall, Yorks (both places belonging to Lord Middleton). In all these avenues the trees range from 120 to 130 feet high; but none can compete in length with an avenue planted at Clumber by the Duke of Newcastle in 1840, which is only 200 yards short of two miles long. Unfortunately, these trees were planted far too wide apart in the rows, 31 feet from tree to tree, and, having been afterwards neglected in the matter of training, have squandered their luxuriance in bushy growth. To form a fine avenue timely pruning is indispensable.

The lime, being more tolerant than the beech of drought, parching heat and a smoky atmosphere, thrives vigorously in towns of moderate size, and also in large cities where the chief fuel is not coal. The well-known thoroughfare, Unter-den-Linden, in Berlin, corresponds to the Mall in London. I have not identified the species with which it is planted; certainly of late years they have been planting in Berlin a natural hybrid known as the smooth-leaved lime (T. euchlora), which has the merit of keeping its glossy foliage later in autumn than the common lime. The trees in Unter-den-Linden are remarkable neither for size nor vigour, but they provide grateful shade and verdure in summer.

The atmosphere of Berlin is certainly not so hurtful to tree growth as that of London, where poplars, planes, ailanthus, and acacia (Robinia) are practically the only forest trees that can do battle successfully with the parching heat and stifling fogs of that city; conditions which the limes that used to stand in the Mall resented by casting their foliage in disgust before August was sped. The limes in the Cathedral close of Winchester afford an example of felicitous association of foliage with noble architecture. Perhaps there is a remembrance of them in Tennyson's Gardeners' Daughter:—

Over many a range
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
Reveal'd their shining windows.

The smooth white timber of lime was once in much more request than it is now. Pliny praises it as worm-proof and useful, describing how the inner bark was woven into ropes, as it now is into bast for the mats with which gardeners protect their frames from frost. These mats are chiefly made in and exported from Russia. Lime timber, being less liable to split than other woods, was the favourite material for wood-carving; indeed, Evelyn writes of it as being used exclusively in their work:—

"Because of its colour and easy working, and that it is not subject to split, architects make with it models for their designed buildings; and the carvers in wood use it, not only for small figures, but for large statues and entire histories in bass and high relieve; witness, beside several more, the festoons, fruitages, and other sculptures of admirable invention and performance to be seen about the choir of St. Paul's and other churches, Royal Palaces, and noble houses in city and country; all of them the works and invention of our Lysippus, Mr. [Grinling] Gibbons, comparable, and for aught appears equal, to anything of the antients. Having had the honour (for so I account it) to be the first who recommended this great artist to His Majesty Charles II., I mention it on this occasion with much satisfaction."

It is owing to the neglect of British planters and the consequent irregularity of the home timber trade that this fine timber has been ousted from its former pre-eminence by imports of other kinds.

In writing of the common lime, I have used the scientific name, Tilia europÆa as conferred on it by LinnÆus, rather than the more recent title of T. vulgaris. There seems a special reason for retaining the old name, inasmuch as LinnÆus considered his own family name was derived from the linden tree.