The Large-Leaved Lime of Louter Bloemen

This small park is all that is left of a country place, and it reads like one the moment you walk in: dominated by tall beeches, with the light already gone by the time it reaches the ground. The lime is one of two standing close together. This one is a large-leaved lime and beside it is a big small-leaved lime, which is a useful accident, because those two species are the parents of the common lime planted everywhere in this country and are far less often seen themselves. The difference is easy in the hand. Large-leaved lime has bigger, softer leaves with fine hairs on the underside and on the stalk, and it flowers first, in June. Small-leaved lime has smaller, hairless, bluish-backed leaves with rusty tufts in the vein angles, and flowers two to three weeks later. Standing between the two of them is the cheapest botany lesson in Dordrecht. Both are banded to the middle of the nineteenth century, which puts them in the estate planting rather than in anything the city did later. Go in late June, when the large-leaved one is out and the whole park smells of it and hums.