Lime blossom (a.k.a. linden, or Tilia cordata) almost seems to drip with honey. (In fact, if you’ve ever parked your car under a linden tree in full flower, it does just that, dropping sticky, furry and fiendishly difficult-to- remove syrup onto the paintwork…)
Tall and stately and one of the oldest trees in existence, it’s said to date back 70 million years. The flowers of the tree are wonderfully nectarous: a magnet for bees (linden honey is particularly delicious). Although linden – also known as ‘tilleul’ in perfumery – can be extracted from the dried flowers, it’s usually recreated synthetically: beautifully sweet, exhilarating, bright as a summer’s day.
(It’s completely unrelated to lime trees, by the way: the name ‘lime’ evolved from the 16th Century Middle English word ‘lind’.)
Smell linden in:
Caron Tabac Blond
Elizabeth Arden 5th Avenue
Estée Lauder Private Collection
Max Mara Le Parfum
Ormonde Jayne Frangipani
Tauer Perfumes Zeta
Yves Saint Laurent Paris
