Tilia platyphyllos 'Broad Leaved Lime'

Tiliaceae: A tall deciduous long-lived tree to 130ft (40m). The bole is normally free of suckers and shoots, distinguishing this species of lime. The bark is dark grey with fine fissures in older trees. The leaves are normally around 9cm long, sometimes to 15cm long, broadly ovate, with a short tapering point and irregularly heart-shaped base. The yellow-white flowers usually open around June, followed by a hard-woody fruit up to 1.8cm. native to lime-rich soils of mainland Europe; in Britain it is native to central and southern England and Wales, having been introduced elsewhere; often planted as a street tree.

USES:

The young leaves can be used raw and can be used to make an excellent salad or sandwich filling, they are mild tasting and somewhat mucilaginous, leaves are available from spring until early autumn from the young growths at the base of the tree. A very acceptable chocolate substitute can be made from a paste of the ground-up flowers and immature fruit, trials on marketing the product failed because the paste is very apt to decompose in storage. A popular herb tea is made from the flowers, it has a sweet, fragrant pleasant flavour. The sap can be harvested in the spring, it is sweet and can be used as a drink or concentrated into a syrup.

Lime flowers are a popular domestic remedy for several ailments, especially in the treatment of colds and other ailments where sweating is desirable. A tea made from the fresh or dried flowers is antispasmodic, diaphoretic, and expectorant, hypotensive, laxative and sedative. Lime flower tea is also used internally in the treatment of indigestion, hypertension, hardening of the arteries, hysteria, nervous vomiting or palpitation. Lime flowers are said to develop narcotic properties as they age and so they should only be harvested when freshly opened. A charcoal made from the wood is used in the treatment of gastric or dyspeptic disturbances and is also made into a powder then applied to burns or sore places.

GROWING INFORMATION:

Much of the seed produced in Britain is not viable, as it needs long hot summer to ripen.

Tree seeds have a deep dormancy within them, this requires a degree of patience to overcome and it is usually quite easy to get high levels of germination if the correct procedures are followed.

First prepare a free draining substrate into which the seeds are to be mixed, this can be a 50/50 mixture of compost and sharp sand, or perlite, vermiculite. The chosen substrate needs to be moist (but not wet), if you can squeeze water out of it with your hand it is too wet, and your seeds may drown and die. Mix the seeds into the substrate, making sure that there is enough volume of material to keep the seeds separated.

Place the seed mixture into a clear plastic bag (freezer bags, especially zip-lock bags are very useful for this -provided a little gap is left in the seal for air exchange) If it is not a zip-lock type bag it needs to be loosely tied. Then write the date on the bag so that you know when the pre-treatment was started.

The seeds first require a period of warm pre-treatment and need to be kept in temperatures of 20°C for a period of at least 16 weeks - it is not critical if it lasts a week or two longer than this. During this time make sure that the pre-treatment medium does not dry out at any stage or it will be ineffective!

Next the seeds require a cold period to break the final part of the dormancy, this is easily achieved by placing the bag in the fridge at (4°C) for at least 16 weeks (although it can take as many as 16 weeks for signs of germination to show). It is quite possible for the seeds to germinate in the bag at these temperatures when they are ready to do so, if they do, just remove them from the bag and carefully plant them up.

When the period of pre-treatment has finished the seed should be ready to be planted. Small quantities can be sown in pots or seed trays filled with a good quality compost and cover them with a thin layer of compost no more than 1cm deep. For larger quantities it is easiest to sow the seeds in a well-prepared seedbed outdoors once the warm and cold pre-treatments have finished and wait for the seedlings to appear.

It has also been found that fluctuating pre-treatment temperatures can give the best germination results and I have myself had excellent results by keeping the mixed seeds in a cold shed through the winter for the cold stage of their pre-treatment and allowing the temperature to fluctuate naturally. Ungerminated seeds can have the whole warm and cold process repeated to enable more seeds to germinate. Fresh seedlings can keep germinating for up to 5 years after the original sowing date.

Do not expose newly sown seeds to high temperatures (above 25°C). Keep the seedlings well-watered and weed free. Growth in the first year is usually between 10 - 50cm depending on the time of germination and cultural techniques and developing seedlings are usually trouble free. Allow them to grow for 1 - 2 years before planting them in a permanent position.

HARVESTED: 2019

APPROX. 15+ SEEDS