easy distinction is that horsechestnuts have sticky, shiny buds and un- 
friendly, spiny fruits, whereas Ohio buckeyes have dry, dull-surfaced 
buds and warty fruits. A good example of an Ohio buckeye is in the 
English Woodland Garden, and, for comparison, a horsechestnut is not far 
away south of the Museum Building. 
Among the additional members of the genus Aesculus in the Garden is 
bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora), a dwarf, shrubby species native 
to Georgia and Alabama. Its showy, white, moth-pollinated flowers are 
dazzling in early summer. Oddly, the closest relatives of this species are 
not other eastern-North American buckeyes, but rather species from the 
West Coast and Asia. A large clump of A. parviflora forma parviflora is 
sliced in two by the walkway passing south from the Climatron area, and 
another (A. parviflora forma serotina (with drooping flower clusters)) is by 
the wall north of the Administration Building. The yellow buckeye 
(Aesculus octandra), near Henry Shaw’s mausoleum, is a more eastern 
species that flourishes in the southern Appalachians. The red buckeye 
(Aesculus pavia—see one in the Woodland Garden) is a small, shrubby 
species native to Missouri and sometimes cultivated for its bright red 
flowers, which attract hummingbirds. The showy hybrid between the red 
buckeye and the horsechestnut is called Aesculus Xcarnea ‘Briotii’; one 
brightens the area behind the Climatron. The large, double-flowered 
horsechestnut in the Jenkins Daylily Garden is the cultivar A. hippocasta- 
num “Baumannii’ (also called ‘Flore Pleno’), which was discovered around 
1822 near Geneva, Switzerland. 
Aesculus is an ancient name for a tree different from the ones consid- 
ered here. Its application to horsechestnuts and buckeyes dates to the 
1700s. Ancient Turks applied the seeds (or whole fruits) to treat horses for 
respiratory ailments and called them At-Kastan, which translates in 
English to “horsechestnut” and in Latin to hippocastanum, the second part 
of the species name. Horsechestnuts are not related to true chestnuts 
(genus Castanea in the Oak Family). 
