unequal and somewhat heart-shaped at the base, acutely
serrated, the upper surface covered with minute hairs ; underneath
softly downy, the nerves and veins fringed, especially
about the origin of each. Footstalks smooth, shorter
than the leaves. Flower-stalks with an oblong, smooth,
pale, membranous bractea attached, usually bearing three
greenish flowers, sometimes only one or two, very rarely
five. Germen densely hairy. Capsule turbinate ; cuticle
coarsely woolly, with four or five, or—accordingtoPlukenett
and Smith, six, prominent ribs covering the divisions of the
woody valves. When the cuticle is scraped off, no angles
appear; in the fruit from Boxhill these ribs were scarcely
discernible. Seeds dark chestnut, only one of which comes
to perfection, destroying the dissepiments.
This lime-tree may be readily distinguished by its broad,
full, hairy leaves, the young shoots also being hairy, by the
umbel of three flowers, and by the prominent ribs of the
cuticle of the capsule.
It seems likely that T. ulmifolia, semine hexagono of Mer-
rett, T.foliis molliter hirsutis, vimmibus rubris, fructu tetra-
gono of Ray, and T. sylvatica nostras, foliis amplis, hirsutie
pubescentibus, fructu tetragono, pentagono aut hexagono of
Plukenett, are identically the same, and ought not to be
distinguished as varieties ; the latter author or his printer
having inserted as distinct the above plant of Merrett,
“ from Whitstable in Surrey, and near Darkin,” instead
of referring to it as a synonym. This error has been perpetuated
by Dillenius, in his edition of Ray’s Synopsis, and
is not the only instance of his adding plants which were
already inserted. At the same time it must be acknowledged
that, were it not for the words “ semine hexagono,”
it might with equal probability be united with T. parvi-
folia, as is done by Haller under n. 1020 |3. The figure of
T. vulgaris platyphyllos in Bauhin’s Historia Plantarum
Universalis, is not T. grandifolia, but T. europcea, as referred
to by Ray.
It is difficult to discover the reason of this species being
called Red Lime, as the twigs are not observed to be more
red than those of T. europcea.—E. F.