“The banch of the Linden is leafy and green”
I used to travel Cheltenham each week for a language lesson. That stopped when UK entered Lockdown. Cheltenham is a city with parks and mature trees. Leaves were beginning to appear on my last visit. I had occasion to make a single visit to Cheltenham yesterday, and the chance to see the trees in their summer liveries.
Linden Trees
Of all the trees in Cheltenham, it’s the Lindens that I miss most. While they are commonly called Lime trees, they are not related to the citrus trees that bear lime fruits. In the US and Canada they are called Basswood.
Valentyn Volkov/Shutterstock
In the UK, Lindens blossom from early June and into July.
Aphids feast on the sap of Linden trees. The aphids are often “farmed” by ants, producing a sweet, very sticky sap that drips from the tree. So while the trees provide shade, it’s not a good idea to park a pretty car underneath a Linden.
The young, translucent leaves of the European Lime can be used in salads. They are also dried and used to prepare a tea.
Scents have a very direct effect upon human memory. Most famously Marcel Proust wrote about scent in Remembrance of Things Past. When Proust’s narrator, Marcel, eats the crumbs of a madeleine dipped in lime blossom tea it triggers a process of remembering that brings his past to life.
Memories of Linden
I have two schooldays memories directly linked to the scent of Linden blossom. My first memory of Linden blossom comes from playing cricket. I wasn’t a team sportsperson, and I loathed cricket. However, for half of each game the unfortunate team that included me would be batting. Apart from the few moments it took for my innings to be terminated, I spent the remainder of the team innings in the shade of a Linden tree, reading or just daydreaming.
My second memory of Linden was associated with amateur dramatics. My box of greasepaint included sticks of Leichner #5 and #9, and the cheapest bottle of makeup remover I could find in Boots the Chemists. It was a Boots’ own product scented with Linden. I suspect it was a mixture of distilled witch hazel and Linden hydrosol.
Linden blossom has a very distinctive scent. Fragrantica describes it as “a bright yellow floral, with a honey and green nuance”. It’s a Heart note, so it has some persistence. I’ve used it as the basis of my Beltane fragrance, both as a perfume and as a fragrance for Hand Creme #14.
There is an evocative description of Linden trees, their cultural significance and history, in How the Light Gets In.
And the opening quote? It comes from the second verse in this chilling piece of cinema: