A tree up to 80 ft high in the wild; young shoots glabrous. Leaves 3 to 5 in. long, mostly somewhat less in width, abruptly taper-pointed, heart-shaped to almost truncate at the base, dark green and glabrous above, pure white beneath with a close white felt, axillary tufts absent, margins edged with rather fine and distant teeth; petiole 1 to 2 in. long. Flowers small, up to about twenty in each pendulous cyme; floral-bract sessile. Fruits thickshelled, downy, more or less warted, globose to ellipsoid or obovoid, slightly ribbed.
A native of Central China, common, according to Wilson, in the moist woods of northwestern Hupeh; discovered by Henry in 1888 and introduced by Wilson in 1900 for Messrs Veitch. It is one of the Chinese white limes, allied to T. tomentosa, which it resembles in its flowers, but they open earlier, at about the same time as T. cordata, the leaves are more finely and more distantly toothed, and the young growths are glabrous. It is an attractive tree, smaller than T. tomentosa, but still needing plenty of room owing to its spreading branches. There are two examples at Kew; one, on the lawn west of the Iris Garden (H. 16) measures 36 × 43⁄4 ft (1972); the other, in the Lime collection, is about the same height and 31⁄4 ft in girth. A crowded specimen at Westonbirt measures 80 × 51⁄4 ft (1977).
An excellent account of this species by Nigel Muir will be found in Gard. Chron., Vol. 183 (1978), pp. 21-2.