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Tilia oliveri

The first of the lime trees come into flower at the end of June, drawing attention to their deep green generously leafy crowns as much by their uniquely sweet smell as much by their profusion of pale flower heads.

The big-leafed lime, Tilia petiolaris, seems to go off first, followed by the common lime, T. x europaea, and then the small-leafed lime, T. cordata, the one true British native of the family. Best of the bunch, though, and flowering fit to bust now, is the rare Tilia oliveri, a chinese 'silver' lime, whose leaves are not only white-backed, but whose creamy flower-bracts are beaten only by the Davidia, the so-called handkerchief tree, for size and beauty. The bunches of little creamy flowers hang from the centres of these finger-like bracts all over the tree. The leaves twist on long stalks to show their pale undersides. The whole tree beams with the joy of fecundity, sending its come-hither perfume a hundred yards down-wind.

Why it has not become popular, if not common, in the hundred years or so since it was brought from China is hard to understand. It was discovered by the great tree-scholar Augustine Henry, introduced by E.H. 'Chinese' Wilson in 1900, and named after Daniel Oliver, the Keeper of the Kew Herbarium. It has grown at Saling some 30 feet in 25 years, a spreading and gently pendulous tree, the star of mid-summer.

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