One of the best known trees in Switzerland - because it has a story attached - is the Murten lime, or linden. It is not in fact in the little town of Murten (Morat in French) but 17 km (10.5 miles) away in Fribourg. It commemorates the Battle of Murten in 1476, in which Bernese-led troops smashed the army of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. The legend says that a messenger grabbed a small branch from a tree on the battlefield, and waved it as a sign of victory as he ran with the good news all the way to Fribourg, where he collapsed. The branch took root on the very spot.

Sadly, the story is unlikely to be true, since it seems that the tree is - or was - even older than the battle. But it met an inglorious end in 1983, when a drunken motorist rammed into it. However, it still lives on, thanks to a cutting taken from the mangled remains and planted out of harm's way. As for the heroic messenger, he is remembered every year on the first Sunday in October, when some 8000 sportsmen and women retrace his steps in the Murten run.

The lime tree at Linn

Another tree with a story is the lime tree at Linn, near Brugg in Canton Aargau. According to legend it stands over the grave of plague victims. The story says the disease wiped out the entire population of Linn, leaving only one survivor. Since even the carter employed to take the bodies to a distant cemetery was dead, this survivor had to get rid of the bodies as best he could, so he simply threw them into a common grave beneath the tree.

The story presumably relates to the plague of the 1660s, the worst ever outbreak in the area - it killed more than two thirds of the population. But the tree was certainly already standing at that time: it is thought to be between 600 and 800 years old. It is now huge: it has a diameter of 3.4 meters (11.1 feet).

The tree has survived several attempts on its life: on occasion people have lit fires in its hollow trunk, but all have been put out. The latest attempt to do away with it occurred in 1990, when someone tried to poison it.