Abstract
IT is unsafe to dogmatise about place-names, and, if I have appeared to do so in the instance of Linethwaite, I must plead in mitigation that the suggestion in Mr. Caine's statement that here is “the oldest flax-spinning mill in the country, perhaps in the world,” was irresistible, especially as the whole of the district in question was long in Scandinavian occupation. On the other hand, it is extremely improbable that the lime or linden-tree ever grew in the forests of northern England. Botanists are not unanimous as to whether any species of lime is a true native of the United Kingdom. Even those who admit the small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata) to the British list recognise it as indigenous only in the southern and west midland English counties. Mr. Clement Reid seems to have been unable to identify fossil remains of this tree, and Mr. H. J. Elwes observes that “it seems hardly possible that a native tree should have lost its power of reproduction by seed in a climate where it succeeds so well even as far north as Ross-shire. In the north of France self-sown seedling limes are not uncommon,” (“Trees of Great Britain and Ireland,” vii., 1659).
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The Name “Linethwaite”. Nature 98, 290 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/098290c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/098290c0
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