CHAPTER XX. 



IV. Compound Opposite Leaves. 



2. With teeth. Leaflets radiating. 



THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS OR BUCKEYES. 



The beautiful native buckeyes and the foreign 

 horse-chestnuts, with broad, rounded figures and 

 haud-shaped, radiating leaves, are conventional char- 

 acters which concede little in the direction of the 

 picturesque. Even the symmetrical sugar maple is 

 not without a certain freedom in detail as well as out- 

 line ; but the horse-chestnuts are the embodiment of 

 rule and order, both in figure and foliage. A full- 

 leaved branch is so conventional in its leaf arrange- 

 ment that a careful drawing appears like a decorative 

 design — I mean if the branch is copied, looking at it 

 square in the face. The most beautiful of these radi- 



Horse-Chestnut. ating-leaved trees is the common 

 yEscnius horse-chestnut,* which comes from 



Hippocastanum. -r-i T , . -■• 1 t 



rtr Europe, it is a medium-sized, round- 



* " It was introduced into this country about the middle of 



250 



