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Small-leaved Lime - Tilia cordata
Large tree to 30 metres. Leaves almost rounded with a heart shaped base, sharply toothed, mostly 3 to 7 cm long. Leaves with buff-orange hair tufts in the underside vein axils, but orangey hairs may sometimes be found in the hybrid lime, so its isn't a reliable form of ID. . Flowers 7 to 8 mm, yellowish-white and fragrant, in erect or oblique cymes, held above horizontal.
other limes, especially the hybrid Common Lime
Only record this species for trees with consistently small crown-leaves (3-7cm) and with erect or obliquely erect cymes.
Photos of the flower cymes showing manner of growth
Woodland, but also widely planted, often as the form 'Greenspire'.
June and July.
Deciduous.
Records are widespread over much of England and into Wales.
Occasional/locally frequent as a native species in old woodlands in Charnwood Forest and Rutland, and frequently planted, increasingly as the cultivar 'Greenspire' as an aphid-free street and park tree.
The VC55 checklist (Jeeves 2011) states that it is scarce, but can be locally frequent, as in Buddon Wood, Owston Woods and Swithland Wood.
It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but is not on the current RPR (Hall & Woodward, 2022); it is listed as 'data deficient' because it is not clear whether records are of introduced/escaped plants or natives.
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Species profile
- Common names
- Small-leaved Lime
- Species group:
- Trees, Shrubs & Climbers
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Malvales
- Family:
- Malvaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 28
- First record:
- 21/09/2005 (Brice Ebert;Emma Williams)
- Last record:
- 14/06/2024 (Nicholls, David)
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