The Horse Chestnut. 259 



The Horse Chestnut, 



This tree is in the class Heptandria, order Monogynia. The 

 generic name is derived from a Latin word by which a tree was 

 called that furnished the Italians with an esculent or eatable fruit. 

 Its characters are : calyx inflated, four-toothed, sometimes five, 

 irregular; corol similarly divided, inserted on the calyx, hairy; 

 capsule three-celled ; seeds large, solitary. This tree came origi- 

 nally from the northern parts of Asia, and has migrated to this 

 country in a curiously long and circuitous route, by way of Con- 

 stantinople, Vienna and France. Lindley, in describing this 

 tribe, takes the ^Esculus Rosea — Rose Colored Horse Chest- 

 kut. The leaves, he observes, are regularly opposite to each other 

 on the branches, and are divided into several toothed lobes, which 

 all proceed from one common point, at the top of a strong round 

 foot-stalk. The flowers appear in compact, stiff, erect clusters, 

 at the ends of the branches. The floral leaves are small, and 

 quickly wither away, falling off, and leaving a scar behind them. 

 Their calyx is a fleshy, smooth, reddish cap, divided into five un- 

 equal, oblong, blunt lobes. The petals are four only ; their claw 

 is long and channelled, inserted below a one-sided, wrinkled, 

 inconspicuous disk ; their limb oblong, crumpled, crisped, of a 

 bright yellowish red color, changing into bright orange yellow at 

 the base, and covered with soft hairs; two of the petals stand at 

 the back of the flower, and two at the sides, overlapping the 

 former a good deal, and exceeding them considerably in size; a 

 fifth petal is wanting from the front, and hence this flower is both 

 unequal and unsymmetrical in its corolla, which irregularity occurs 

 in every part except the ovary. We have already seen that the 

 lobes of the calyx are unequal ; the disk has also been described 

 as one-sided, and you will next find that the stamens are unsym- 

 metrical with regard to the surrounding parts. Instead of being 

 five or ten, and so corresponding with the calyx, or four or eight, 

 which would agree with the petals, you will find only seven, 

 which agree with neither; they are curved downwards towards 

 the front of the flower, the filaments covered with long hairs, 

 which protect the style, terminating in oblong, red, hairy anthers, 

 tipped with a reddish point. The pistil is covered with hairs, 



