The Buckeyes 



tent and the spreading of the young leaves into erect umbrellas 

 all over the treetop. During this brief period the trees are en- 

 chanting. I wish every house-pent human being could stop 

 \Vork and sit with folded hands and absorb the beauty 

 and inspiration of this spectacle. A brief hour and it is 

 over; the leaflets rise and go about their duties, leaving 

 with us only a memory of their hour of adorable appealing 

 babyhood. 



The horse-chestnut tree in bloom is a superb sight — "a 

 pyramid of green supporting a thousand pyramids of white!" 

 Each blossom of the dense cluster has in its throat dashes of 

 red and yellow, and the curving, yellow stamens are thrust far 

 out of the ruffled border of the corolla. If they were rare flowers, 

 they would be admired as orchids are now. 



Few of the flowers set seed, as few have perfect pistils. 

 The cluster does quite enough if it matures one or two burs. 

 In fall the small boy assails the trees, knocks off and husks the 

 smooth brown nuts, and how glowing and soft are the colours 

 of them! They are "Conquerors" in games which recur as 

 regularly among town children in the autumn as do games of 

 marbles and the flying of kites in the spring. 



The fall of the horse-chestnut leaves is a sudden and absolute 

 surrender. When the time comes, the leaflets and the stem 

 that bore them fall separately. The leaf has evidently expected 

 to come apart, for the joints are perfect: there is no tearing nor 

 breaking involved in the process. 



The base of the leaf stalk leaves a scar on the twig which 

 is strikingly like the print of a horse's hoof. This may have 

 given its name to the tree. Or was it, as Gerarde explains, 

 "for that the people of the east countries do with the fruit thereof 

 cure their horses of the cough, shortness of breath, and such like 

 diseases"? More probably the coarse, large, uneatable nuts 

 are responsible; many rank-growing plants unfit for human 

 food are similarly named, e. g., horse mint, horse nettle, horse 

 sugar. 



The great fault of the horse chestnut is that it is continually 

 dropping something. The bud scales first make a considerable 

 litter; then the flowers fall like snow. The unripe fruits drop in all 

 stages, and the leaves that choke to death in the crowded interior 

 turn rusty yellow and drop all summer. It also casts too dense 



386 



