TEEES AXD SHRUBS FURNISHING MEDICINAL BARKS. 



37 



HORSE-CHESTNUT. 



Aesculus hippocastanum L 



Other common names. — Hippocastanum, bongay, konker 

 Habitat and range. — This handsome tree is a native of A 



in this country as an ornamental shade 



tree. In parts of New York and New 



Jersey it lias escaped from cultivation. 

 L>< 8cription of tree. — The horse-chest- 

 nut is a rather large tree, usually 



about 40 feet in height, and haying 



many branches. Sometimes it will 



grow as tall as 100 feet. The bark has 



a brownish gray color, smoothish on 



the younger trees, but fissured and 



scaly on the older ones i fig. 32). The 



large, shining, resinous leaf buds are a 



prominent feature of the winter and 



early spring aspect of the tree. The 



leaves when mature are smooth, except 



perhaps for tufts of hairs on the veins 



of the lower surface, but the young 



unfolding leaf is quite hairy. The 



leaves are large, composed of 5 to 7 



leaflets 4 to 8 inches long, pointed and 



broadest at the top and narrowing 



toward the base, with irregularly 



round-toothed margins ( fig. 33 I . 



tree. 

 sia, lar 



«ly cultivated 



Fig. 



-Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippo- 

 castanum i, trunk. 



Fig. 



5. — Horse-chestnut {Aesculus hippo- 

 castanum), leaves and fruits. 



The flower cluster, sometimes 1 foot 

 in length, is most handsome and showy 

 in appearance, consisting of a dense, 

 somewhat pyramidal head of large 

 white flowers, the petals fringed, wavy, 

 and spotted with yellow and red, and 

 having protruding stamens. They ap- 

 pear about June. The fruit is round- 

 ish and prickly, about an inch or so 

 in diameter, and contains a large, shin- 

 ing brown nut (fig. 33). This tree 

 belongs to the buckeye family (Aescti- 

 1 a cere). 



O titer species. — The Ohio buckeye 

 {Aesculus glabra Willd. ). called also 

 smooth buckeye and fetid buckeye, oc- 



curs in woods and along river banks from Pennsylvania south to Alabama, and 

 westward to Michigan and the Indian Territory. It is a small tree, native in 

 139 



