The Lime or Linden-tree is generally known among our countrymen as the
Bass, and was not, before the present century, employed as a wayside
tree. The old standards seen in our ancient villages are European Limes.
During the past thirty years the American tree has been very generally
planted by roadsides, in avenues and pleasure-grounds, and few trees are
more highly valued in these situations. But the American has less beauty
than the European tree, which is clothed with softer foliage, has a
smaller leaf, and a neater and more elegant spray. Our native Lime bears
larger and more conspicuous flowers, in heavier clusters, but of
inferior sweetness. Both species are remarkable for their size and
longevity. The Lime in Great Britain is a tree of first magnitude,
frequently rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet, with a trunk
of proportional diameter. The American species is not inferior to it in
size or altitude. Some of the largest trees in Western New York are
Limes.
The Lime has in all ages been celebrated for the fragrance of its
flowers and the excellence of the honey made from them. The famous Mount
Hybla was covered with Lime-trees. The aroma from its flowers is like
that of mignonette; it perfumes the whole atmosphere, though never
disagreeable from excess, and is perceptible to the inhabitants of all
the beehives within the circuit of a mile. The Lime is also remarkable
for a general beauty of proportion, a bright verdure contrasting finely
with the dark-colored branches, and an outline regular and symmetrical
without formality. When covered with leaves, it bears some resemblance
in outward form to the maple, but surpasses it, when leafless, in the
beauty of its ramification. The leaves are roundish heart-shaped, of a
clear and lively green in summer, but acquiring a spotted and rusty look
in autumn, and adding nothing to the splendors of that season. In the
spring, however, no tree of our forest displays a more beautiful verdure
before it acquires the uniform dark green of the summer woods.
The branches of the Lime have a very dark-colored surface,
distinguishing it from other trees that agree with it in size and
general appearance. The bark of the maple, for example, is light and of
an ashen-gray tint, and that of the poplars a sort of greenish
clay-color. This dark hue renders the spray of the Lime very
conspicuous, after a shower, and in spring, when all the leaves are of a
light and brilliant green; but these incidental beauties are not very
lasting. The branches, being alternate, are very minutely subdivided,
and their extremities neatly drawn inwards, so that in a denuded state
it is one of our finest winter ornaments. The spray of the beech is more
airy, that of the elm more flowing, and that of the oak more curiously
netted and interwoven; but the spray of the Lime is remarkable for its
freedom from all defect.
George Barnard, who, being a painter, looks upon trees as they are more
or less adapted to his own art, remarks:—
“When young, or indeed up to an age perhaps of sixty or seventy years,
the Lime has a formal appearance, with little variation in its masses of
foliage; but let some accident occur, such as the breaking down of a
large branch, or the removal of a neighboring tree, it then presents a
charming picture.”
One of the curiosities of the Lime-tree that deserves notice is a
certain winged appendage to the seed, which is a round nut about the
size of a pea. This is attached to a long stem, from the end of which,
joined to it obliquely, descends a ribbon-like bract, causing it, when
it falls, to spin round and travel a long distance upon the wind. If the
tree stands on the borders of a pond, where the seeds fall upon the
surface, this winged appendage performs the part of a sail, and causes
the seeds to be wafted to different points of the opposite shore.