HIPPOCASTANACE.E 



709 



5. Aesculus discolor Pursh. Buckeye. 



Leaves with slender grooved villose or pubescent usually ultimately glabrous petioles 4' 

 or 5' long, and 5 oblong-obovate or elliptic leaflets, acuminate and usually long-pointed at 

 apex, gradually narrowed and acuminate at the entire base, finely or coarsely and some- 

 times doubly crenulate-serrate above, dark green, lustrous and glabrous except along the 

 slender yellow midrib and veins on the upper surface, lighter colored and tomentulose or 

 tomentose on the lower surface, 4'-5' long, \\'-%! wide, nearly sessile or raised on slender 

 petiolules up to \' in length. Flowers opening from the first to the middle of April, usu- 

 ally 4'-!' long, on slender pubescent pedicels much thickened on the fruit, sometimes \' 

 long, and mostly aggregated toward the end of the short branches of the narrow pubescent 

 inflorescence 6'-8' in length; calyx red, rose color or yellow more or less deeply tinged with 



Fig. 638 



red, tubular, short and broad or elongated, puberulous on the outer surface, tomentose 

 on the inner surface, with rounded lobes; petals yellow, shorter than the stamens, connivent, 

 unequal, oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, puberulous on the outer surface and glandular 

 on the margins with minute dark -glands, those of the superior pair about half as wide as 

 those of the lateral pair, with claws much longer than the calyx; filaments and ovary 

 villose. Fruit ripening and falling in October, usually only a few fruits maturing in a cluster, 

 generally obo void or occasionally subglobose, mostly 2-seeded, \\'-%\' long, with very thin, 

 light brown slightly pitted valves; seeds light yellow-brown, sometimes \\' in diameter, 

 with a comparatively small hilum and a thin shell. 



Rarely arborescent and occasionally 25 high, with a straight trunk 6' or 7' in diameter, 

 stout branches forming a narrow symmetric head, and slender branchlets marked by 

 numerous small pale lenticels, green and puberulous at first, becoming gray slightly tinged 

 with red during their first winter and only slightly darker in their second year; usually 

 a small or large shrub. Winter-buds broad-ovoid, obtusely pointed, about \' long, with 

 rounded apiculate light red-brown scales. Bark thin, smooth, and pale. 



Distribution.' Rich woods; Shell Bluff on the Savannah River, Burke County, Georgia; 

 near Birmingham, Jefferson County, and Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; near Camp- 

 bell, Dunklin County, Missouri; Comal Springs, New Braunfels County, and Sutherland 

 Springs, Wilson County, Texas; rare and local, and found as a tree only near Birmingham, 

 Alabama; more abundant is the var. mollis Sarg. (Aesculus austrina Small) with bright red 

 flowers; a tree up to 25 or 30 high, or more often a large or small shrub; valley of the 

 lower Cape Fear River (near Wilmington, New Hanover County), North Carolina, south- 



