Tilia oliveri Szysz.
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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Bean's Trees and Shrubs
Tilia oliveri Szysz.
Synonyms: T. pendula V. Engler, not Rupr. & Maxim.
A tree up to 80 ft high in the wild; young shoots glabrous. Leaves 3 to 5 in. long, mostly somewhat less in width, abruptly taper-pointed, heart-shaped to almost truncate at the base, dark green and glabrous above, pure white beneath with a close white felt, axillary tufts absent, margins edged with rather fine and distant teeth; petiole 1 to 2 in. long. Flowers small, up to about twenty in each pendulous cyme; floral-bract sessile. Fruits thickshelled, downy, more or less warted, globose to ellipsoid or obovoid, slightly ribbed.
A native of Central China, common, according to Wilson, in the moist woods of northwestern Hupeh; discovered by Henry in 1888 and introduced by Wilson in 1900 for Messrs Veitch. It is one of the Chinese white limes, allied to T. tomentosa, which it resembles in its flowers, but they open earlier, at about the same time as T. cordata, the leaves are more finely and more distantly toothed, and the young growths are glabrous. It is an attractive tree, smaller than T. tomentosa, but still needing plenty of room owing to its spreading branches. There are two examples at Kew; one, on the lawn west of the Iris Garden (H. 16) measures 36 × 43⁄4 ft (1972); the other, in the Lime collection, is about the same height and 31⁄4 ft in girth. A crowded specimen at Westonbirt measures 80 × 51⁄4 ft (1977).
An excellent account of this species by Nigel Muir will be found in Gard. Chron., Vol. 183 (1978), pp. 21-2.
From the Supplement (Vol. V)
This species is portrayed in Bot. Mag., n.s., t.859.
specimens: Kew, near Iris Garden, pl. 1911, 36 × 5 ft (1985) and two others of about the same age and size in the Lime Collection; Westonbirt, Glos., 82 × 53⁄4 ft and a younger tree in the Acer Glade, pl. 1943, 60 × 41⁄4 ft (1983); Anglesey Abbey, Cambs., pl. 1929, 50 × 31⁄2 ft (1984); Killerton, Devon, 58 × 31⁄2 ft (1980).
† T. chingiana Hu & Chen – This species, described from Kiangsi in 1935, is near to T. oliveri. It is at present known in cultivation only from trees raised at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, Eire, from seeds received from the Lushan Botanic Garden in Kweichow in 1938 (another introduction from the same source was T. henryana). The specimen at Birr measures 33 × 13⁄4 ft (1985) and judging from herbarium specimens it scarcely differs from T. oliveri in foliage, except that the leaves are more scantily stellate-downy beneath.
Recommended citation
'Tilia oliveri' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Other species in genus
- Tilia amurensis
- Tilia chinensis
- Tilia chingiana
- Tilia cordata
- Tilia dasystyla
- Tilia endochrysea
- Tilia 'Euchlora'
- Tilia × europaea
- Tilia heterophylla
- Tilia insularis
- Tilia intonsa
- Tilia kiusiana
- Tilia maximowicziana
- Tilia mexicana
- Tilia miqueliana
- Tilia 'Moltkei'
- Tilia mongolica
- Tilia nobilis
- Tilia paucicostata
- Tilia petiolaris
- Tilia platyphyllos
- Tilia tomentosa
- Tilia tuan
Tree to 26 m tall. Bark light grey; shallow longitudinal fissures develop by 100 years. Twigs slender (1.5–3 mm thick), green or red-tinged, with patches of white stellate pubescence. Buds large (9 mm long), with one scale visible and a small part of a second, usually glabrous and shining. Leaves 5–11 × 5–10 cm; marginal teeth well-spaced and asymmetric, with a pale mucronate tip 0.3–1.1 mm long; upper surface mid-green, glabrous; lower surface densely covered with a white tomentum of stellate hairs which have mostly 8 or 16 arms. Floral bracts large (6–11 × 0.9–2.5 cm), almost stalkless, pale green with white stellate tomentum on both surfaces. Inflorescence drooping, compact, with 7–20 flowers. Staminodes present. Fruits 9–14 × 7–10 mm, ellipsoidal, strongly mamillate, densely covered with a brown tomentum; wall thick and not breakable between fingers (Pigott 2012, Flora of China 2018).
Distribution China Gansu, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan
Habitat Mountain forests
USDA Hardiness Zone 6
RHS Hardiness Rating H6
With their dense cover of often 16-armed stellate hairs, the undersides of the leaves of the selections of Tilia oliveri familiar in western collections are the most brilliantly silvery of any lime and perhaps of any tree, though it is a shame that the plant waits until the very end of spring before opening them. The large floral bracts in midsummer, white-hairy on both surfaces, are also perhaps the showiest of the genus. The tree thrives in the UK climate, rapidly forming the even dome common to many lime species: the champions, in the Westonbirt National Arboretum, are two trees both 25 m × 70 cm dbh in 2014, by Specimen Avenue and Pool Avenue, the latter planted in 1943. Another mature tree of 12 m × 66 cm dbh is one of the exciting public plantings in Scarborough’s Peasholm Park on the North Yorkshire coast (Tree Register 2018). An example at Riverhill Park in Kent is festooned in wild mistletoe (Viscum album), a parasitic plant sometimes seen abundantly on T. × europaea. Most of the younger Oliver’s Limes in Britain were propagated by Hillier and Sons from a tree which still survives on the small green at the end of Nursery Gardens on the site of Hillier’s West Hill Nursery in suburban Winchester (Pigott 2012, Tree Register 2018).
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