Herb of the Month: Lime Tilia europaea

In the garden

If your garden is large enough for a Lime tree, you are lucky indeed! Generally lime trees are found in parks, or lining the road in wide avenues, or forming avenues in driveways to large houses. People sometimes complain about sticky nectar being dropped onto cars parked underneath lime trees. If you can reach the lower branches of lime, now is the time to go out and pick the flowers (and bracts) for lime tea. They are in flower for about ten days in mid-June; you can smell the delicious honey scent from a great distance. Don’t delay: get out there and pick!

What to pick

The picture shows the underside of a leaf, at the top, and then the lighter coloured banana-shaped bract with a flower stalk and on it three open flowers, and two in bud. You ignore the heart-shaped leaves, and pick the whole bract and flower stalk, with open flowers. The whole bract with flowers is used in herbal medicine. Dry them on a wire rack, and when dry chop them up in a food processor and store in a (preferably dark) glass jar. Use a heaped teaspoon of lime flowers to a cup of boiling water, stand for five minutes and strain.

In herbal medicine

Anyone who has been on a Herb Walk with me will know why I love lime flowers. Not only are they valuable medicinally, they are abundantly available, widely useful, safe, and delicious! These are pretty unique qualities among herbs. Lime flowers are nervines, relieving tension and anxiety, and aiding sleep. They will calm restless and excitable children. They relax muscles, and are good for ailments linked with tension: headaches, irritability, depression, period pains, neck, shoulder and back pain, colic and cramp. The bioflavonoids relax the arteries so help relieve high blood pressure. They relax the coronary arteries too, easing palpitations. A hot infusion reduces a fever, and clears catarrh. The mucilage soothes a sore throat and harsh cough. A warm or cool infusion is diuretic, useful in water retention, rheumatism and gout.