The Buckeyes 



Buckeyes are distinguished by large winter buds, showy 

 flowers in pyramidal racemes, large handsome foliage, and large 

 nuts in 3-valved husks. 



Every continent of the Northern Hemisphere has its buckeyes. 

 There are eleven species in all. Of these America has four in her 

 own right; the horse chestnut of Asia Minor is much oftener 

 planted in this country than the native kinds. Indeed this 

 species is the most cosmopolitan of trees, being found in the 

 parks of cities in all regions where the climate permits it to thrive. 

 It is a hardy immigrant, springing up spontaneously in some 

 sections of our Eastern States. 



The name "buckeye" is traceable to the brown nut marked 

 with white, which suggested to somebody's fancy the eye of a 

 deer. "Horse chestnut" employs the word horse to indicate 

 that the fruit, which resembles the familiar edible chestnut, is 

 unfit for human food. One nibble will prove to anyone its 

 rank quality. These nuts lie untouched by squirrels through the 

 most trying of winters. A strange circumstance is that the name 

 /Esculus was the classical name of an oak tree, and it is very 

 similar in form to the Latin word which means edible. Acorns 

 formed an important part of the diet of primitive peoples, but it 

 is hard to imagine an edible horse chestnut. Bitter, astringent 

 bark and seeds are characteristic of the whole family. 



In Mexico and Central America grow two species of the 

 genus Billia, trees with three leaflets instead of five or seven. 

 Otherwise, the trees are like the buckeyes, and are included in the 

 family. The maples with their opposite leaves are near relatives 

 of the buckeyes. 



Ohio Buckeye, Fetid Buckeye (/Esculus glabra, Willd.) 

 — Tree 20 to 70 feet high, with small, spreading top; odour fetid; 

 twigs brown, pubescent, becoming smooth. Bark grey, broken 

 into plates. Wood white, shading into brown sap wood, light, 

 soft, and difficult to split. Winter buds pointed, § inch long, not 

 resinous; scales elongating to 2^ inches in spring, becoming 

 light coloured. Leaves opposite, yellow-green, of 5 (rarely 7) 

 obovate, smooth leaflets. Flowers April and May, in terminal 

 clusters, small, pale, yellow-green. Fruit, October, i to i^ 

 inches in diameter, globular, 3-valved, very prickly when green, 

 becoming less so when ripe; nut brown, with pale spot on side. 

 Preferred habitat, moist woods along river banks. Disirtbuiion, 



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