Tilia x europaea lime
If you park your car below a tree and return to find it sticky, you have found a lime. The stickiness is excess sap secreted by the many aphids that feast on the leaves but despite this obvious drawback, it is widely planted as a street tree, perhaps because it is easy to propagate and tolerant of pruning: as with London planes it is often pollarded to keep it to size and prevent it from bothering double decker buses. It is also widely found in parks and large gardens, growing unrestricted. Lime is one of the tallest broad-leaved trees you will see in the UK, with bright-green leaves and covered in sweet-scented flowers that attract hundreds of bees in July. Common lime is a naturally occurring hybrid between small-leaved lime Tilia cordata, and large-leaved lime Tilia platyphyllos and it occurs in the wild wherever both trees grow. Limes are also known as lindens, a name often reflected in street names.
1 Bark
The young twigs are reddish-brown and hairy towards the ends, with reddish-brown buds in winter. On mature trees the bark is grey with dark grey fissures.
2 Leaves
The leaves are mid-green, supple and delicate with a lop-sided heart shape. On the back there are tufts of hairs in the leaf axils.
3 Flowers
Flowers are attached to a light-green, leaf-like bract. They hang in bunches and have five yellowish-white petals with long stamens. The blossom can be used to make a herbal tea.
4 Fruits
Once the flowers have been pollinated they turn into round, pale-green, one-seeded fruits.
5 Silhouette
A tall and columnar tree, often with a mass of burrs and brushwood emerging from low down on the trunk. Grows up to 50m in height.