THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS 65 



From the mountain slopes to the sea, and from Mendo- 

 cino County to Lower California, groves of this semi- 

 prostrate giant are found, furnishing abundant supply of 

 fuel, but no lumber of any consequence, because the 

 trunks are so short and the limbs so crooked. 



THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS, OR BUCKEYES 



The Horse-chestnut 



Aesculus Hippocastanum, Linn. 



At the head of this family stands a stately tree, native of 

 the mountains of northern Greece and Asia Minor, which 

 was introduced into European parks and planted there as 

 an avenue tree when landscape gardening came into 

 vogue. By way of England it came to iVmerica, and in 

 Eastern villages one often sees a giant horse-chestnut, per- 

 haps the sole remnant of the street planting of an earlier 

 day. 



Longfellow's "spreading chestnut tree" was a horse- 

 chestnut. And the boys who watched the smith at his 

 work doubtless filled their pockets with the shiny brown 

 nuts and played the game of "conquerors" every autumn 

 as regularly as they flew their kites in spring. What boy 

 has not tied a chestnut to each end of a string, whirled 

 them round and round at a bewildering rate of speed and 

 finally let them fly to catch on telegraph wires, where they 

 dangle for months and bother tidy folks .^^ 



The glory of the horse-chestnut comes at blooming 

 time, when the upturning branches, like arms of candel- 

 abra, are each tipped with a white blossom-cluster, pointed 



