The lime tree (Tilia Spies) is allegedly present in the UK in three species:
- Small-leaved Lime, Tilia cordata;
- Large-leaved Lime, Tilia platyphyllos;
- Silver or White Lime, Tilia tomentosa.
Lime trees are very much natives of Europe, including the UK and grow to a good height, up to 50 metres. They were present in the old oak forests that covered much of England and Wales in prehistoric times and play an important role in providing insects with nectar at a time when most woodland trees have finished flowering. The nectar they produce (which is ample in quantity) sometimes ferments and becomes alcoholic, causing the insects – especially bees, to become intoxicated and lie on the ground on their backs waving their legs in the air. Additionally, it is not advisable to park under the branches of lime in midsummer because the sticky alcoholic pollen can stick to car paintwork.
Lime wood is fairly plain on detail but is very easy to work. It is often the wood of choice for wood carvers; made famous by the seventeenth century Dutch carver Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721).
In the later additions to Hampton Court Palace that are in a vaguely English Baroque style (not to be confused with the Tudor part of the building), the very sophisticated decor is enriched by Gibbons’ still life carvings. This work by Gibbons has darkened over the years and is not too different from the oak panelling in colour.
Following the terrible fire on 31 March 1986 that destroyed so much of architectural and artistic artefacts, Gibbons fine detailed carving was lost to the flames.
When repair work got under way, it was found out that much of Gibbons’ work was destroyed beyond repair, so competitions were set up for modern woodcarvers to replace Gibbons’ work. What was unusual in this was the specification that the replacement work was to be done in Gibbons’ style and techniques.1 The way this new work was done was to copy Gibbons’ work in detail, whilst still allowing for the modern carver’s input. The most noticeable difference between the old and the new is the colour. The fresh lime wood shows what Gibbons’ original work looked like.
The lovely soft creamy white of the new lime wood is delightful and helps us understand how new carvings looked, either in the 17th Century or the 20th.
Figure 1. A modern carving by Nancy Catford to a design by J Rodney Stone for Spillers Ltd. In the style of Grinling Gibbons.
Lime Trees Biology and Natural History
In the introduction above, we mentioned three Tilia species. Rather like the elm (see part 10), the limes are more complicated. In fact, various hybrids between any two of the three species mentioned now have the title: the Common Lime, which incorporates all sorts of characteristics of their parents.
For convenience, our details of this tree will try to include features of all three species in T x europaea or the Common Lime. The x denotes hybrid. Lime could well be the largest of our broadleaf trees, both in height3 and girth. There is one example in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire that is estimated to be 2000 years old.
Examples in mainland Europe are known to be nearly 400 years old and one giant tree of these genera in Germany was supported by 100 props. Compare to the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest which has nowhere near that number of props.4 The tree flowers at various times through July, depending on parentage, producing beautiful lime-green flowers in clusters in great abundance and giving off a wonderful perfume. See figure 2.
Unlike most of our broadleaf trees that flower in March or April (the willows even earlier), the lime can rely on insect pollinators, whereas the earlier flowering trees depend on wind or water borne pollination. The bark of the lime can be stripped off a dead tree and made into lines (hence the tree’s original name was probably Line-tree), this being the root of its other popular name, the Linden (line + den short for tree).
The fresh new leaves bursting in mid to late spring are ideal animal fodder and if caught before attacked by numerous insect pests, they are pleasant to eat in a salad. So, even if the wood for building or making structural articles for use in the home or on the farm is oak or elm, lime was encouraged because of its edible nature to man and livestock and a source of lines to build up into rope or smaller twine. It would also be a useful timber to make table or kitchenware as it can be easily shaped and turned on a lathe. Medieval evidence exists to show that lathes whose motive power was a springy ash sapling were fairly common.
The problem with lime trees regenerating naturally is that the little seedlings are eaten by a range of animals both wild and domestic.
Figure 2. Lime tree leaf, bract and flowers
Lime Trees and our Pre-history
As the lime is an old native tree it is a good time to explain how our forests developed.
Europe includes Britain as for a long time, the British Isles was connected to mainland Europe by a land bridge, as was Ireland to Wales and what is now Northern Ireland to Scotland. This was obviously the case when about 12,000 years ago the ice cover began to thaw. The remaining smaller glaciers still accounted for vast amounts of water. Because of this, the sea level remained very low and even at the end of this period when temperatures were rising, the glaciers began to thaw, and rainfall replaced the ice blizzards, for thousands of years the sea levels remained to a lesser degree, low. It was during this period that the spread and exchange of plant and animal species became very active; this was especially so for the trees.
All plants and animals making their home in Britain from this period we can call native species. The small-leaved parent T.cordata, became established at this period. We know this because of the pollen grains found at these strata when small diameter boreholes are made with a hollow drill bit several metres long. This long bit is withdrawn and laid on the ground and the hollow pipe can be undone so that we have two channel shaped halves, and the soil samples can be seen, recorded and the pollen identified under the microscope.
Of course, by this period, humans were living throughout Europe, probably very sparsely spaced out and they had domestic animals and gathered food crops. Once humans had started to till the soil between trees, new trees could not grow and steadily the forest cover was reduced. We know of at least one crop that benefitted from this reduction in tree cover—the hazel tree (or shrub) Corylus avellana or the cobnut. The selection of various natural strains of this plant was either naturally, or with the help of man developed, and produced better nuts (now known as Filberts or Kentish cobs).
With primitive tools, the felling of full-grown trees could present problems, so youngish shoots of trees were cut down and used as small diameter poles. This process grew into coppicing, whereby every so many years, the shoots were cut down and the tree sent up more shoots to be harvested after the appropriate passage of years. This reduced the cover by big trees but provided cover in certain areas, interspaced with open, well-lit spaces.
The main trees in our forests were oak and elm, and in our calcium rich areas another pair of trees made their home, the ash and the beech. The beech Fagus sylvatica is thought to have become native to Britain after the last great ice age, probably about 10,000 years ago. An alternative opinion is that beech was introduced just prior to the Roman invasions6, the first under Julius Caesar in 55/54 BC and the last under Claudius in 43 AD and it apparently started growing first in southern regions, steadily spreading north. The ash tree Fraxinus excelsior grows further north than the beech and came to these shores via Scandinavia. This last tree we still must study, and it has played a very important role in the British landscape and is now threatened by a disease called ‘ash die-back’, which we look at with the ash itself.
In Scotland and parts of Northumbria the dominant tree became the Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris. All these forest trees did not immediately form forests, they had to be protected and nursed in the early stages and this is done by nurse or pioneer trees. These are trees and shrubs that claim the space for trees to grow; they include the alder, birch, juniper, bramble, and some species of willow. In a more limited way Ash and Sycamore can be a semi-pioneer tree. Sycamore traditionally was viewed as a pest, but foresters have changed their minds and have classed it as a beneficial tree helping other forests get started. Its main problem is that it does not know when its job is done and overstays its welcome.
Conclusion
In part 21 I hope to study the ash tree and in part 22 to investigate willows and poplars; they are both members of the same family the Salicaceae. Individual willows can reach an old age but by then large chunks of their central heartwood has rotten away. Some of these individual trees can be old, as much as 400 years or more. As a group of trees, willows and poplars have now become used only in specialist traditional country crafts, like coracle, trug and sports goods, such as cricket bat making. These trees have the misfortune to be greedy feeders, leaching the soil of nutrients. However, they can show pioneering skills (this more the willow than the poplar), and the willow, like alder, can grow in waterlogged ground, hence riverbank trees. When they form a small wood in marshy ground, the woodland is called a ‘carr’. So, we have alder carr and willow carr. This name has stuck even in areas that have stopped being waterlogged. This just demonstrates how woodland terms have been kept in rural areas showing the importance of our native tree cover in our history and folklore. Brian K
Hodgson, Ph.D, FIMMM, FFB, FIOC, MIMWoodT, AMICT | Lancaster (deceased)
This article first appeared in the December 2022 issue of Cutting Edge. As part of the IOC membership, IOC members receive quarterly editions of Cutting Edge magazine and access to all back issues online.
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