226 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



yESCULUS CALIFORNICA, Californian Buckeye 



JEsculus calif omica, Nuttall, in Torrey and Gray, Fl. N. America, i. 251 (1839); Bot. Mag. t. 5077 

 (1858); Sargent, Silva N. America, ii. 61, tt. 71, 72, and Man. Trees. N. America, 648 (1905); 

 Bean, in Gard. Chron. 1902, xxxi. 187, fig. 57. 



A tree, attaining in America 40 feet in height, with a short trunk occasionally 

 9 feet in girth. Bark smooth, grey or white. Leaves with slender grooved 

 petioles. Leaflets five to seven, stalked, oblong lanceolate, acuminate at the apex, 

 cuneate or obtuse at the base, shallowly and crenately serrate, pale glabrescent 

 beneath. Terminal leaflet, with ten to twelve pairs of nerves. Flowers in dense 

 pubescent panicles, 3 to 8 inches long. Calyx two-lipped, upper lip with three teeth, 

 lower lip with two teeth much shorter than the four narrow oblong petals, which 

 are white or pale rose in colour. Stamens five to seven, long, erect, exserted. 

 Ovary pubescent. Fruit pear-shaped, two to three inches long, smooth, pale 

 brown. 



In summer it is readily distinguished from the other species with viscid buds by 

 the small leaves, pale beneath. In winter the twigs are slender, grey, glabrous, 

 with numerous lenticels. Leaf-scars wide apart, joined by a linear ridge, flat on the 

 twig, without a leaf-cushion, crescentic or semicircular, with a row of five to seven 

 bundle-dots. Pith large, circular, white. Terminal buds, larger than the lateral 

 buds, which arise at an, acute angle, oval, pointed, glistening with white resin ; 

 scales gaping at the apex of the bud, broadly ridged on the back, ciliate in margin, 

 with a tuft of hairs at the apex. 



The species is a native of California, where it grows on the banks of 

 streams. A very striking picture of a tree, at San Mateo, California, is given in 

 Garden and Forest, iv. 523. It shows a very short forked bole, nearly 20 feet in 

 girth at 2 feet from the ground, and an immense umbrella -shaped head only 

 32 feet high and 60 feet in diameter, densely covered all over with flowers. 



It was introduced in 1855 by Messrs. Veitch, and flowered in their nursery 

 at Exeter in 1858. It fruited' at the Bath Botanic Gardens in 1901, and again 

 in 1905, though it remains a shrub. It is perfectly hardy in the south of England, 

 and is remarkable for the beauty of its flowers, which appear in June and July. 

 The best specimen we know of in the country is one which Elwes found growing 

 in a shrubbery at Hutley Towers near Ryde, Isle of Wight. It is about 30 feet 

 high, and was in flower on June 22, 1906. (A. H.) 



' Gard. Chron. 1902, xxxi. 187. 



