Limes

At least forty-five species of Tilia, the limes, live in the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere including five in Europe.

Our two native UK limes are the small-leaved (Tilia cordata) and the large-leaved (Tilia platyphyllos).Small-leaved lime is the commoner of the two here, and was the last major tree to reach Britain after the Ice Age. It grows as far north as the Lake District in England and into Wales.

On mainland Europe, it spreads from northern Spain to Norway and eastwards to beyond the Urals.

Small-leaved lime was probably far more common here in prehistoric times. Selective felling by man caused its decline. It has always been used for forestry, principally for coppicing as it produces long, straight poles from the resilient stools.

Experts agree to disagree if the large-leaved lime is truly native or not but it is found regularly only in more southerly warmer counties. In Continental Europe, it is found further south than small-leaved lime, in central Spain, northern Greece, southern Italy eastwards to Poland and the western Ukraine.

Where their ranges overlap, these two limes can hybridise forming the Common lime, a fertile cross between the two. This is the one we see widely planted in gardens and towns. Common lime are attractive trees, planted along roads and in parkland avenues where they can be pollarded or heavily pruned successfully and have sweet-smelling flowers.

Leaves of most limes are heart shaped with long stalks, soft and pale green with toothed or serrated borders.

Unlike most British trees, limes are pollinated by insects rather than the wind and flower late in the year, usually in June or July. The flowers hang in bunches with a peculiar and characteristic parchment-like bract attached to the long stalks. Dried flowers make a herbal tea. The fertilised flowers ripen into a grey, round, hard nut-like fruit in September and fall off with the bract acting as a sail to help dispersal. Wood from limes is soft, light and white coloured and is used mainly in turnery and carving. Centuries ago, the fibrous bark from lime was used for the "bass" or "bast" in rope making. An old name for lime was "linden".