The Silver Lime by the Bismarck Monument
Every leaf on this tree is two colours: dark green on top, silver-white felt underneath, so the crown flickers pale whenever the wind turns it over. That underside is where the silver lime gets its name, and it is why Berlin protects this one for its beauty. The register gives regional heritage as the second reason, and made it Naturdenkmal 1-90/B on 2 March 1993. It is not a Berlin tree by birth. The species is native to south-eastern Europe and Anatolia, so a grown one in the Tiergarten was planted by somebody on purpose, and nobody has recorded who or when. Its neighbour is another arrival. The Bismarck Monument, Reinhold Begas's bronze chancellor, stood in front of the Reichstag until 1938, when it was moved here to the Grosser Stern to clear the ground for Hitler's plans for the capital. The statue came with a date. The tree did not. The moment to come is July. Silver limes flower weeks after the city's common limes have finished, and the scent carries well past the trunk, which tends to bring the bees before it brings the people. There is no age and no girth for this tree in any source we have read. If you know when it was planted, or can put a tape round it, tell us.
strongly honey-scented flowers, usually the last lime to bloomFruityellow, after a summer of leaves flashing their white undersides
July, when it flowers weeks after the city's other limes and scents the path
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Grosser Tiergarten, near the Bismarck Monument, Berlin-Mitte You can recognise it by the leaves, dark green above and silver-white underneath, which show pale when the wind turns them. It stands near the Bismarck Monument on the north side of the Grosser Stern.
Free, open public park (Grosser Tiergarten), no gate; open at all hours.
S Bellevue roughly 550 m (about 8 minutes on foot); Grosser Stern bus stops roughly 350 m.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.