THE HORSE CHESTNUT, 



35 



other claims on our attention, which, is far from 

 being the case, it well deserves to be considered 

 as a favourite tree, and such it is with most people. 



The Horse Chestnut is a native of Asia, proba- 

 bly of northern India, whence it was introduced 

 into Europe about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century. In the year 1588, there was a growing 

 specimen at Vienna, which had been planted there 

 twelve years before, but which had not then 

 flowered. This is said to have been imported from 

 England, whither it had been brought from the 

 mountains of Thibet in 1550. In France it was 

 first raised from seed procured from the Levant, in 

 the year 1615. Gerard, in 1579 speaks of it as a 

 rare foreign tree ; and how little it was known 

 even by those who had seen it, may be inferred 

 from the fact that Parkinson in 1629 places it as a 

 fruit-tree between the "Walnut and the Mulberry, 

 and says also that it is of as good use as those 

 trees for the fruit, which is of a sweet taste, 

 roasted and eaten, as the ordinary sort. Some of 

 the trees planted at Baden in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury are said to be still in existence. There was 

 until very recently, an avenue of splendid trees, 

 planted in the seventeenth century, near the 

 Royal Military Asylum at Chelsea; within the 

 last tv/o years, however, they have, with question- 

 able taste, been cut down to make room for a 

 promenade and a younger plantation. 



The name ^sculus, from esca, food, was ap- 

 plied originally to a species of Oak which, accord- 

 ing to Pliny, w^as highly prized for its acorns, but 

 how it came to be transferred to the Horse Chest- 

 nut is very uncertain ; perhaps, as Loudon sug- 

 gests, it was given ironically because its nuts bear 



