DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
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flowers, and all, is completed in about three or four weeks 
When the leaves first unfold, they are clothed with a 
copious cotton-like down, which falls off when they have 
attained their full size and development. 
The growth of the Horse-chestnut is slow for a soft- 
wooded tree, when the trees are young ; after five or six 
years, however, it advances with more rapidity, and in 
twenty years forms a beautiful and massy tree. It prefers 
a strong, rich, loamy soil, and is easily raised from the large 
nuts, which are produced in great abundance. 
There are several species of Horse-chestnut, but the 
common one ( JEsculus Hippo castanum) is incomparably 
the finest. The American sorts are the following : {JEs- 
calus Ohioensis,) or Ohio Buckeye, as it is called in the 
western states ; a small sized tree, with palmated leaves 
consisting of five leaflets, and pretty, bright yellow flowers, 
with red stamens. The fruit is about half the size of the 
exotic species. The Bed-flowered Horse-chestnut {JEscu- 
lus rubicunda) is a small tree with scarlet flowers ; and the 
Smooth-leaved {HI. glabra) has pale yellow flowers. All 
the foregoing have prickly fruit. Besides these are two 
small Horse-chestnuts with smooth fruit, which thence 
properly belong to the genus Pavia, viz. the Yellow-flow- 
ered Pavia ( P . lutea) of Virginia and the southern states ; 
and the Red-flowered {P. rubra), with pretty clusters of 
reddish flowers ; both these have leaves resembling those 
of the Horse-chestnut, except in being divided into five 
leaflets, instead of seven. There are some other species, 
which are, however, rather shrubs than trees. 
