The Horse-Chestnut — yEs-cuius Hippocastanum 
T7ROM its original home in the mountains 
of Greece the Horse-Chestnut has been 
carried by men over a large part of the habit¬ 
able world. From the earliest settlement of 
North America by Europeans it has been 
planted for shade and ornament, and in some 
of the Eastern States it has spread spontane¬ 
ously from the fruit of these planted trees. 
The Horse-Chestnut has many qualities 
which make is desirable for ornamental 
planting. It grows sturdily and rapidly, has 
few insect enemies, gives a dense shade and 
has at all seasons a somewhat conventional 
beauty that is exceedingly attractive. Even in 
winter the straight trunks shoot up from the 
middle of the tree with an orderly arrange¬ 
ment of the branches and twigs, and the 
huge conical buds with their glistening 
brown hues are sure to challenge attention. 
In early spring the trees have a very 
bizarre effect that cannot be neglected. A 
little later, when the gray, compound 
leaves have fully developed and the glori¬ 
ous erect panicles of white blossoms come 
to their perfection, the Horse-Chestnut is, as 
the artist Hamerton has said, “a sight for 
gods and men.” 
These wonderful blossoms, seem primarily 
intended by nature to attract the visits of 
the queen bumble-bees, which are abroad 
during the weeks when the chestnuts bloom. 
The expanded, recurved stamens, with pro¬ 
jecting style and stigma, serve as a landing 
place for the bees, which are guided to the 
nectar by the spots of color at the base of the 
petals. This nectar is protected from the 
visits of ants and other wingless insects 
which would steal it without carrying the 
pollen from blossom to blossom, as do the 
bumble-bees, by the presence of numerous 
hairs upon various parts of the flower. 
l he leaf of this tree is an excellent illustra¬ 
tion of a palmately compound leaf. There 
are usually from five to seven leaflets arranged 
on the end of the stout petiole, which is much 
enlarged at its base and which, when it falls 
off in autumn, reveals a most characteristic 
leaf-scar which has been frequently likened to 
a horse-shoe, a series of so-called bundle scars 
around the margin serving to represent the 
nails. Mrs. Dyson writes that in England 
the tree is sometimes called the Hyacinth 
tree and also the Giant’s Nosegay, a sugges¬ 
tive name when the tree is in blossom. 
