LIME (LINDEN)WHOLE FLOWER[TILIA SPP.]

Listing description

Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Commonly called lime trees in the British Isles, they are not related to the lime fruit. Other names include linden, and basswood for the North American species. The genus occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but the greatest species diversity is found in Asia.

Detailed description

Uses

The linden is recommended as an ornamental tree when a mass of foliage or a deep shade is desired.^[6] The tree produces fragrant and nectar-producing flowers, the medicinal herb lime blossom. They are very important honey plants for beekeepers, producing a very pale but richly flavoured monofloral honey. The flowers are also used for herbal teas and tinctures; this kind of use is particularly popular in Europe and also used in North American herbal medicine practices.

Wood

Linden trees produce soft and easily worked timber, which has very little grain and a density of 560 kg per cubic metre.^[10] It was often used by Germanic tribes for constructing shields. It is a popular wood for model building and for intricate carving. Especially in Germany, it was the classic wood for sculpture from the Middle Ages onwards and is the material for the elaborate altarpieces of Veit Stoss, Tilman Riemenschneider, and many others. In England, it was the favoured medium of the sculptor Grinling Gibbons^[11] (1648–1721). The wood is used in marionette- and puppet-making and -carving. Having a fine light grain and being comparatively light in weight, it has been used for centuries for this purpose; despite the availability of modern alternatives it remains one of the main materials used as of 2015.

Ease of working and good acoustic properties also make limewood popular for electric guitar and bass bodies and for wind instruments such as recorders. Percussion manufacturers sometimes use tilia as a material for drum shells, both to enhance their sound and for their aesthetics.

The aquarium industry uses lime wood as an air diffuser inside protein skimmers. Air pumped through the grain of the wood turns into consistently very fine bubbles (0.5–1.0 mm), difficult to achieve with any other natural or man-made medium. However, the wood decomposes underwater much faster than ceramic air stones and must be replaced more frequently for maximum efficiency.

Limewood is also the material of choice for window blinds and shutters. Real-wood blinds are often made from this lightweight but strong and stable wood, which is well suited to natural and stained finishes.

Bark

Known in the trade as basswood, particularly in North America, its name originates from the inner fibrous bark of the tree, known as bast. A strong^[12] fibre is obtained from the tree by peeling off the bark and soaking it in water for a month, after which the inner fibres can be easily separated. Bast obtained from the inside of the bark of the Tilia tree has been used by the Ainu people of Japan to weave their traditional clothing, the attus. Recent excavations in Britain have shown that "lime tree fiber" was preferred for clothing there during the Bronze Age. Similar fibres obtained from other plants are also called bast: see Bast fibre.

Herbalism

The dried flowers are mildly sweet and sticky, and the fruit is somewhat sweet and mucilaginous. Limeflower tea has a pleasing taste, due to the aromatic volatile oil found in the flowers. The flowers, leaves, wood, and charcoal (obtained from the wood) are used for medicinal purposes. Active ingredients in the Tilia flowers include flavonoids (which act as antioxidants) and volatile oils. The plant also contains tannins that can act as an astringent.^[13]

Linden flowers are used in herbalism for colds, cough, fever, infections, inflammation, high blood pressure, headache (particularly migraine), and as a diuretic (increases urine production), antispasmodic (reduces smooth muscle spasm along the digestive tract), and sedative.^[14] In the traditional Austrian medicine Tilia sp. flowers have been used internally as tea for treatment of disorders of the respiratory tract, fever and flu. New evidence shows that the flowers may be hepatoprotective. The wood is used for liver and gallbladder disorders and cellulitis (inflammation of the skin and surrounding soft tissue). That wood burned to charcoal is ingested to treat intestinal disorders and used topically to treat edema or infection such as cellulitis or ulcers of the lower leg.

Usually, the double-flowered species are used to make perfumes. The leaf buds and young leaves are also edible raw. Tilia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera; see List of Lepidoptera that feed on Tilia.

PRICE

$47.54/KG

For more information:

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contact person: emeaba uche

website: www.franchiseminerals.com

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