176 



HIPPOCASTANACEAE 



AESCULUS PAVIA Linnaeus 

 Red Buckeye 



The Red Buckeye, fig. 43, is a shrub 3 to 8 feet high or 

 sometimes a tall tree with large, erect, smooth-barked branches 

 and glabrous, orange-brown branchlets which become pale 

 brown and are conspicuously marked by numerous leaf-scars. 



FIG. 43 

 Aesculus Pavia 



The leaves are opposite and digitately compound, being made 

 up of 5 elliptic to oblong leaflets, which are abruptly acuminate 

 at the apex and gradually narrowed and wedge shaped at the 

 base. The leaflet margins are sharply but evenly toothed, and 

 the blades at maturity are glabrous above and beneath, except 

 that there are conspicuous tufts of hair in the vein axils be- 

 neath. The leaves are 4 to 6 inches long, and the leaflets have 

 the same length and are from I14 to 1^ inches wide. 



The light red flowers, which open in early spring when the 

 leaves are about half grown, stand at the end of branches in 

 narrow panicles 4 to 8 inches long. The tubular calyx is red, 

 and the petals are provided at the base with claws as long as 

 the calyx, the upper pair with claws much longer than the calyx. 



