BUCKEYE FAMILY. Hippocastanaceae. 



BUCKEYE FAMILY. Hippocastanaceae. 



A small family, widely distributed; trees or shrubs, with 

 opposite, compound leaves, no stipules and terminal 

 clusters of irregular flowers, some perfect and some with 

 only pistils or only stamens; the calyx tubular or bell- 

 shaped, with five, unequal lobes or teeth; the petals four 

 or five, unequal, with claws; the stamens five to eight, with 

 long filaments; the ovary superior, with no stalk, three- 

 celled, with a slender style; the capsule leathery, roundish 

 or slightly three-lobed, smooth or spiny, with one to three, 

 large, polished seeds. 



There are a good many kinds of Aesculus, or Horse 

 Chestnut, natives of America and Asia; the leaves pal- 

 mately compound, with toothed leaflets; the flowers of [ 

 two sorts, the fertile ones few in number, near the top of 

 the cluster, with long, thick styles, and the sterile flowers 

 with short styles. 



One of our handsomest western shrubs, 

 California usually from ten to fifteen feet tall, with 



uckeye grav fa^ an( j dark bluish-green foliage, j 



Calil6rnica t ^ le l ean<ets ^ rom ^ ve to seven in number, 



White glossy on the upper side, pale and dull on 



Spring, summer the under, and firm in texture. The 

 California flowers have a rather heavy scent and are 



about an inch across, with four or five, slightly irregular, 

 white petals, which become pink in fading, a pinkish ovary 

 and long stamens with curling, white filaments, unequal in 

 length, with buff anthers. They are crowded in a mag- 

 nificent, pyramidal cluster, about a foot long, which has a 

 pinkish-red, downy stem, and the buds are also downy 

 and pinkish, so that the color effect is warm-pink above, I 

 merging into cream-white below, the whole made feathery 

 by the long stamens. The shrub has a rounded top of rich 

 green foliage, symmetrically ornamented with spires of I 

 bloom, standing up quite stiffly all over it. The large, [ 

 leathery pod contains a big, golden-brown nut, supposed 

 to be poisonous to cattle. The leaves fall off very early in 

 the season, leaving the pods hanging on the bare branches. 

 This is at its best in the mountain valleys of middle Cali- 

 fornia, sometimes becoming a good-sized tree. 



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