THE HORSE-CHESTNUT 



FROM its original home in the mountains of Greece the Horse-Chestnut has been 

 carried by men over a large part of the habitable world. From the earliest settle- 

 ment of North America by Europeans it has been commonly planted for shade 

 and ornament, and in some parts of the Eastern States it has spread spontaneously from 

 the fruit of these planted trees. 



The Horse-Chestnut has many qualities which make it desirable for ornamental 

 planting. It grows sturdily and rapidly, has few insect enemies, gives a dense shade, 

 and has at all seasons a somewhat conventional beauty that is attractive to nearly every 

 one. Even in winter the straight trunks shoot up from the middle of the tree with an 

 orderly arrangement of the branches and twigs, and the huge, conical buds, with their 

 glistening brown hues, are sure to challenge attention. In early spring when-r- 



" The gray hoss-chestnut's leetle hands unfold, 

 Softern a baby's be at three days old," 



the trees have a bizarre^ effect that cannot be neglected. A little later, when the gray, 

 compound leaves have fully developed and the glorious erect panicles of white blossoms 

 come to their perfection, the Horse-Chestnut is, as the artist Hamerton has said, "a sight 

 for gods and men." 



These wonderful blossoms, however, seem primarily intended by nature to attract 

 the visits of the queen bumble-bees, which are abroad during the weeks when the Chest- 

 nuts bloom. The expanded, recurved stamens, with projecting style and stigma in their 

 midst, serve as a landing-place for the bees, which are guided to the nectar by the spots of 

 color at the base of the petals. This nectar is protected from the visits of ants and other 

 wingless insects which would steal it without carrying the pollen from blossom to blossom, 

 as do the bumble-bees, by the presence of numerous hairs upon various parts of the flower. 



The leaf of this tree is an excellent illustration of a palmately compound leaf. There 

 are usually from five to seven leaflets arranged on the end of the stout petiole, which is 

 much enlarged at its base and which, when it falls off in autumn, reveals a most character- 

 istic leaf-scar which has been frequently likened to a horse-shoe, a series of so-called bundle- 

 scars around the margin serving to represent the nails. Mrs. Dyson writes that in England 

 the tree is sometimes called the Hyacinth Tree and also the Giant's Nosegay, a suggestive 

 name when the tree is in blossom. 



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