It is strange that Tennyson, so sensitive to delicacy of sound, should have used the modern form in his frequent mention of the tree. Only one instance comes to mind of his preferring the more musical dissyllable. When Amphion set the forest dancing-- The _Linden_ broke her ranks and rent The woodbine wreaths that bind her, And down the middle--buzz! she went, With all her bees behind her. The limes form a somewhat perplexing family, inasmuch as, of the score or so of species recognised by botanists, several cannot be reputed as more than hybrids or sports. The only species claimed as indigenous to Britain is the small-leaved lime (_Tilia cordata_), and even about this botanists are not of a certain mind. For instance, the joint authors of _The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland_ have formed different opinions, Dr. Henry considering it to be "a native of England, ranging from Cumberland southward," while Mr. Elwes fails to reconcile this with the facts that no fossil remains of this tree have been identified in the British Isles, and that he has never been able to find, or to find anybody else who has found, a self-sown seedling. There are many fine specimens of the small-leaved lime in England, ranging from 80 to 110 feet high; but it has never been known to attain the dimensions of the common lime (_T. europæa_), which, although it is an exotic species, has made itself thoroughly at home between the Straits of Dover and the Moray Firth, and is the tree which those who do not scrupulously discriminate regard as _the_ lime tree _par excellence_. It would require much space to mention all the notable limes in our country, for they were very extensively planted 200 or 300 years ago, and, being long-lived, many of them have grown to great size. Mr. Elwes gives the palm to the lime grove at Ashridge, Lord Brownlow's fine park in Hertfordshire. These trees were planted in 1660, and average 120 feet in height and 10 feet in girth. They have been grown in a close row, only 12 to 15 feet apart, and have thereby escaped the defects to which limes are so prone as ornamental trees--namely, spreading to ungainly breadth instead of rising to height, and covering their trunks with an unsightly mass of brush. [Illustration: FLOWER OF THE LINDEN TREE (_Tilia europæa_)]