HIPPOCASTANACE/E—HORSE-CHESTNUT 
FAMILY 
OHIO BUCKEYE. FETID BUCKEYE 
vEsculus glabra. 
ZEsculus is derived from esca, nourishment, Glaéra, smooth. 
A tree varying in height from thirty to seventy feet, native only in 
the valley of the Mississippi. Prefers the river bottoms ; nowhere 
abundant, but widely distributed. Roots thick and fleshy. Reaches 
its greatest development in the valley of the Tennessee and in 
northern Alabama. 
Bark.—Dark gray, densely furrowed, broken into plates. Branch- 
lets orange brown and downy, later reddish brown and smooth, 
marked with many lenticular spots, finally dark brown. Fetid, me- 
dicinal. 
IVood.—White, sapwood pale brown; light, soft, close-grained. 
Used especially in the manufacture of wooden limbs. Sp. gr., 0.4542; 
weight of cu. ft., 28.31 Ibs. 
Winter Buds.—Pale brown, two-thirds of an inch long, acute, 
outer scales with glaucous bloom. Inner scales enlarge when spring 
growth begins, become an inch and a half to two inches long, green- 
ish yellow tipped with red and remain until leaves are nearly half 
grown. 
Leaves.—Opposite, digitately compound. Leaflets five, rarely 
seven, oval, oblong, or ovate, gradually contracted at the base, ser- 
rate, acuminate, feather-veined ; midrib and primary veins promi- 
nent. They come out of the bud a shining brownish green, downy; 
when full grown are yellow green above, paler beneath. In autumn 
they turn a rusty yellow. Petiole long, grooved, swollen at base, 
sometimes chaffy at the point where the leaflets diverge. 
Flowers.—April, May, June. Terminal, polygamo-moneecious, 
yellow green, unilateral; borne in terminal panicles five to six 
inches long, two to three in breadth, more or less downy ; pedicels 
four to six-flowered. 
50 
