British Native Trees
and Shrubs

Small-Leaved Lime Tilia cordata (Tiliaceae)

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness!….

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison
Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834]

This native lime is an elegant deciduous tree growing up to 30m, with smooth, grey bark which may later become ribbed and young twigs which soon lose their slightly downy covering. The dark-green leaves, too, are hairless except for a few orange-brown tufts in the vein-axils and are up to 6 cm long, toothed, heart-shaped and tapering abruptly to a fine tip. They turn yellow in autumn. Clusters of four to ten, five-petalled, yellow-white flowers open in June and July, held above the foliage on long, obliquely-upright stalks each with a leaf-like bract at the base. This bract acts as a wing helping the smooth, rounded, short-beaked fruits to flutter from the tree after they ripen in October.

Small-leaved lime is scattered in woods throughout lowland England but is most often found on deep, base-rich soils in central England and Essex.

It is slow-growing and suitable as a specimen tree which responds well to pollarding or coppicing if necessary. In large gardens small-leaved limes make an effective avenue. It grows in sun or semi-shade and fertile, moist but well-drained soil, preferably alkaline to neutral. The leaves attract aphids which produce sticky honeydew and the drips can be a nuisance when they fall onto paths or cars. It is best propagated by collecting seed and sowing thickly in boxes containing seed compost, then leaving for a year and planting out the seedlings 30 cm apart in a nursery bed. If grown in quantity they can be transplanted up to two years later, growing on for a further one or two years. When only one or two plants are required, seedlings can be pricked out into small pots initially then grown on in three-litre pots for planting out in their third season.

The soft, even-grained wood is white when fresh but reddish after drying and valued for making sounding boards and keys for pianos and organs. It was used by Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) for his wonderful wood carvings and is still a favourite of turners and sculptors. The flowers can be dried to make lime tea.

In summer the trees hum with the sound of myriad bees attracted by the nectar-filled flowers, and many other insects feed on the sugary honeydew produced by aphids. convert the into lime honey. The leaves are also food for buff-tip and lime hawk-moth caterpillars.

Page last updated - January 10, 2002  

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