82 THE FLORIST AND 
THE OHIO HORSE-CHESTNUT. 
The Ohio Horse-Chestnut, {^sculus OMensis of Michaux,) is one of our 
handsomest native ornamental trees. Though an old described species, it is 
seldom found in collections, which is in chief part owing to its being very 
frequently confounded with the Ohio Buckeye [Pavia flava of De Candolle,) 
from which it is hardly to be distinguished in its foliage, though very differ- 
ent in flower and fruit. 
The whole family of the Horse-Chestnuts, including the Buckeyes, are so 
very much alike in habit and foliage, that it is difficult to point out charac- 
ters by which any one not a practical botanist might be able to distinguish 
them one from another. But when they are in flower or fruit, their several 
distinctions are very clear. Of the two divisions, the first or true Horse- 
Chestnuts are well characterized by their bell-shaped flowers, and particu- 
larly by their echinated or prickly-shelled fruit ; while the second division, 
or buckeyes, have their fruit smooth shelled, or at the most merely warty, 
and their flowers somewhat tubercular. 
The English Horse-Chestnut, as it is called, (v^. Hippoeastanum,) is so 
widely disseminated, that its prickly-shelled fruit is well known. The shell 
of the Ohio species has the spines set thinner together than in the former ; 
they are also mostly of one regular length, and tapering gradually to a 
point ; while the European has them of irregular sizes and shapes. The 
flower of the Ohio Horse-Chestnut is of a pale yellow color, and though not 
quite so much bell-shaped as the other species, is sufficiently to be distin- 
guished in that respect from a Pavia. Neither the individual flowers, or 
the clusters, are so large, or by any means so showy, as the common Horse- 
chestnut, but are yet very handsome. 
The chief beauty of this tree lies in its diffuse habit of growth, so differ- 
ent from the stiff and erect forms of all the other species ; its shining dark 
green leaves, and the abundance of its fiozvers, which are produced on very 
young or small trees. It never attains to a very large size, perhaps seldom 
exceeding 40 feet ; and indeed bears, in that respect, much the same rela- 
tion to the other kinds, as amongst the Magnolias, M. tripetela does to M. 
acuminata. 
So slender are its branches, that in an open situation, standing by itself, 
when in fruit and often when in flower, the outside branches are almost 
•weighed to the ground. In such a situation as a single object', or lawn tree, 
there are few trees capable of surpassing it in beauty. 
