Tilia Totally Explained

Everything about Lime Tree totally explained

Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, in Asia (where the greatest species diversity is found), Europe and eastern North America; it isn't native to western North America. Under the Cronquist classification system, this genus was placed in the family Tiliaceae, but genetic research by the APG has resulted in the incorporation of this family into the Malvaceae. The trees are generally called lime in Britain and linden in North America. Tilia species are large deciduous trees, reaching typically 20-40 m tall, with oblique-cordate leaves 6-20 cm across, and are found through the north temperate regions. The exact number of species is subject to considerable uncertainty, as many or most of the species will hybridise readily, both in the wild and in cultivation.

Name

Lime is an altered form of Middle English lind, in the 16th century also line, from Old English feminine lind or linde, Proto-Germanic *lendā, cognate to Latin lentus "flexible" and Sanskrit latā "liana". Within Germanic, English lithe, German lind "lenient, yielding" are from the same root. Linden was originally the adjective, "made from lime-wood", from the late 16th century also used as a noun, probably influenced by translations of German romance, as an adoption of Linden, the plural of German Linde (OED). Neither the name nor the tree is related to the citrus fruit called "lime" (Citrus aurantifolia, family Rutaceae). Another widely-used common name used in North America is Basswood, derived from bast, the name for the inner bark (see Uses, below).
Latin tilia is cognate to Greek πτελέᾱ "elm tree", τιλίαι "black poplar" (Hes.), ultimately from a PIE *ptel-ei̯ā with a meaning of "broad (feminine)", perhaps "broad-leaved" or similar (IEW).

Species

The following list comprises those most widely accepted species.

Tilia americana Basswood or American Linden
Tilia amurensis Amur Lime or Amur Linden
Tilia begoniifolia
Tilia caroliniana Carolina Basswood
Tilia chinensis
Tilia chingiana
Tilia cordata Small-leaved Lime or Little-leaf Linden
Tilia dasystyla
Tilia europaea European Lime
Tilia henryana Henry's Lime or Henry's Linden
Tilia heterophylla White Basswood
Tilia hupehensis Hubei Lime
Tilia insularis
Tilia intonsa
Tilia japonica Japanese Lime
Tilia kiusiana
Tilia mandshurica Manchurian Lime
Tilia maximowicziana
Tilia mexicana
Tilia miqueliana
Tilia mongolica Mongolian Lime or Mongolian Linden
Tilia nobilis
Tilia occidentalis - West lime
Tilia oliveri Oliver's Lime
Tilia paucicostata
Tilia platyphyllos Large-leaved Lime
Tilia rubra - Caucasian lime
Tilia tomentosa Silver Lime or Silver Linden
Tilia tuan

Hybrids and cultivars

Tilia × euchlora (T. dasystyla × T. platyphyllos)

Tilia × europaea Common Lime (T. cordata × T. platyphyllos; syn. T. × vulgaris)

Tilia × petiolaris (T. tomentosa × T. ?)

Tilia 'Flavescens' (T. americana × T. cordata)

Tilia 'Moltkei' (hybrid, unknown origin)

Tilia 'Orbicularis' (hybrid, unknown origin)

Tilia 'Spectabilis' (hybrid, unknown origin)

Description

The Linden's sturdy trunk stands like a pillar and the branches divide and subdivide into numerous ramifications on which the spray is small and thick. In summer this is profusely clothed with large leaves and the result is a dense head of abundant foliage.
The leaves of all the lindens are one-sided, always heart-shaped, and the tiny fruit, looking like peas, always hangs attached to a curious, ribbon-like, greenish yellow bract, whose use seems to be to launch the ripened seed-clusters just a little beyond the parent tree. The flowers of the European and American lindens are similar, except that the American bears a petal-like scale among its stamens and the European varieties are destitute of these appendages. All of the lindens may be propagated by cuttings and grafting as well as by seed. They grow rapidly in a rich soil, but are subject to the attacks of many insect enemies.
Lime flowers are used in colds, cough, fever, infections, inflammation, high blood pressure, headache (particularly migraine), as a diuretic (increases urine production), antispasmodic (reduces smooth muscle spasm along the digestive tract), and sedative. New evidence shows that the flowers may be hepatoprotective. The flowers were added to baths to quell hysteria, and steeped as a tea to relieve anxiety-related indigestion, irregular heartbeat, and vomiting. The leaves are used to promote sweating to reduce fevers. The wood is used for liver and gallbladder disorders and cellulitis (inflammation of the skin and surrounding soft tissue). That wood burned to charcoal is ingested to treat intestinal disorders and used topically to treat edema or infection, such as cellulitis or ulcers of the lower leg.

History

In Europe, Lime trees are known to have reached ages measured in centuries. In the courtyard of the Imperial Castle at Nuremberg is a lime which tradition says was planted by the Empress Cunigunde, the wife of Henry II of Germany. This would make the tree about nine hundred years old (when it was described in ). It looks ancient and infirm, but in 1900 was sending forth thrifty leaves on its two or three remaining branches and was of course cared for tenderly. The famous Lime of Neustadt on the Kocher in Würtemberg was computed to be one thousand years old when it fell.. The Alte Linde tree of Naters, Switzerland, is already mentioned in a document in 1357 and described by the writer at that time as already "magnam" (huge). A plaque at its foot mentions that in 1155 a Lime tree was already on this spot.

The excellence of the honey of far-famed Hybla was due to the lime trees that covered its sides and crowned its summit.

The name of Linnaeus, the great botanist, was derived from a lime tree.

Tilia appears in the tertiary formations of Grinnel Land in 82° north latitude, and in Spitsbergen. Sapporta believed that he found there the common ancestor of the limes of Europe and America.

Cultural significance

The lime tree is a national emblem of Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, where it's called lipa (in Slovak, Polish, and Slovenian) and lípa (in Czech). The tree also has cultural and spiritual significance in Hungary, where it's called hars(fa).The Croatian currency, kuna, consists of 100 lipa, also meaning "linden". The lime tree is also the tree of legend of the Slavs. In the Slavic Orthodox Christian world, limewood was the preferred wood for panel icon painting. The famous icons by the hand of Andrei Rublev, including the Holy Trinity (Hospitality of Abraham), and The Savior, now in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, are painted on limewood. Limewood was chosen for its ability to be sanded very smooth, and for its resistance to warping once seasoned.
The national poet of Romania, Mihai Eminescu, was known to receive poetic inspiration from a linden tree in the Copou Gardens under which he'd compose.
The most famous street in Berlin, Germany is called Unter den Linden or Under the lindens, named after the linden trees lining the boulevard. In German folklore, the linden tree is the "tree of lovers."

Germanic mythology

The tilia was also a highly symbolic and hallowed tree to the Germanic peoples in their native pre-Christian Germanic mythology.
Originally, local communities not only assembled to celebrate and dance under the lime-tree to hold their judicial thing meetings there in order to restore justice and peace. It was believed that the tree would help unearth the truth. Thus the tree became associated with jurisprudence even after Christianization, such as in the case of the Gerichtslinde, and verdicts in rural Germany were frequently returned sub tilia (under the lime-tree) until the Age of Enlightenment.
In the Nibelungenlied, a medieval German work ultimately based on oral tradition recounting events amongst the Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries, Siegfried gains his invulnerability by bathing in the blood of a dragon. While he did so, a single linden tree leaf sticks to him, leaving a spot on his body untouched by the blood and he thus has a single point of vulnerability.

Greek mythology

Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Pliny mention the lime-tree and mention its virtues. As Ovid tells the old story of Baucis and Philemon, she was changed into a linden and he into an oak when the time came for them both to die.
Herodotus says:

Romantic symbol

As Freya was also the goddess of love her tree was always considered a romantic symbol, even to the present day. For instance, a very famous mediaeval love poem by Walther von der Vogelweide (c.1170-c.1230) starts with a reference to the lime-tree:

� Under der linden

:an der heide, � dâ unser zweier bette was,

   dâ mugt ir vinden � schône beide

   gebrochen bluomen unde gras. � vor dem wald in einem tal,

   tandaradei, � schône sanc diu nahtegal.

� Under the lime tree

:on the open field, � where we two had our bed,

   you still can see � lovely both

   broken flowers and grass. � On the edge of the woods in a vale,

   tandaradei, � sweetly sang the nightingale.

Linden-trees play a significant motif in a number of poems written by the most famous Romanian romantic poet Mihai Eminescu. An excerpt from his poem Mai am un singur dor (One Wish Alone Have I):

� Pătrunză talanga

:Al serii rece vânt, � Deasupră-mi teiul sfânt

Să-şi scuture creanga.

� While softly rings

:The evening's cool wind � Above me the holy lime

Shakes its branch. (translation: M.G.Jiva)

Romantic symbols in music

The trees have also become more famous from O-Zone's Dragostea Din Tei (Love From Linden Trees).

� Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei,

:nu ma nu ma iei, � nu ma nu ma nu ma iei.

Chipul tau si Dragostea din tei � mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

� You want to leave, but you can't take me,

:you can't take me, � you can't take me, you can't take me.

The image of your face and the love from linden trees � remind me of your eyes.

Other Literary References

The lime tree is an important symbol in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," (written 1797; first published 1800).
   The linden tree is featured as a symbol of supernatural dread in Hannah Crafts' The Bondwoman's Narrative.
   A road lined with linden trees is cursed by the narrator of the famous censored poem, "Ich was ein chint so wolgetan" (I was such a lovely child), from the Carmina Burana.
   A poem from Wilhelm Müller's cycle of poems, Winterreise, is called "Der Lindenbaum." The cycle was later set to music by Franz Schubert.

Further Information

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