horse chestnut
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horse chestnut
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| horse chesnut |
(Wendy Smith) |
n.
- Any of several trees of the genus Aesculus, especially the European species A. hippocastanum, having opposite, palmately compound leaves, erect clusters of white flowers tinged with red or yellow, and spiny or smooth capsules containing large shiny brown seeds.
- The seed of any of these plants.
[Perhaps from a former use to cure cough in horses.]
horse chestnut, common name for some members of the Hippocastanaceae, a family of trees and shrubs of the north temperate zones and of South America. The horse chestnut tree, Aesculus hippocastanum, a native of the Balkan peninsula, is now cultivated in many countries for shade and ornament. Buckeyes are several similar but often smaller North American species of the same genus. Horse chestnuts and buckeyes (as the nuts too are called) somewhat resemble true chestnuts in appearance but are edible only after careful preparation. Some Native Americans ate buckeyes in large quantity after thorough roasting or leaching. Buckeyes, with their eyelike markings, are still carried as charms by some rural people. Ohio is called the Buckeye State from the prevalence of the Ohio buckeye, A. glabra. The wood of the horse chestnut and of the buckeye is soft; it has been used for paper pulp and for carpentry, woodenware, and other similar purposes. A compound derived from the buckeye, aesculin, is a pharmaceutical used as an anti-inflammatory. The only other genus of the family is Billia, evergreens ranging from Colombia to Mexico. Horse chestnuts are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Sapindales, family Hippocastanallae.
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Horse Chestnut
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Source: Aesculus hippocastanum L. (Family Hippocastanaceae).
Deciduous tree up to 25 m; leaves opposite, digitate with five to seven obovate, irregularly crenate–serrate leaflets; glabrous above, tomentose beneath. Flowers white, with yellow to pink spot at base, in large cylindrical panicle. Spiny globose fruits 2–6 cm in diameter with large brown smooth seed, 2–4 cm in diameter; found in mountain woods, indigenous to central Balkan peninsula, widely planted and established throughout the northern hemisphere as a shade and ornamental tree (tutin 2). The parts used are the seed, branch bark, and leaves.
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Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
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Aesculus
A genus of the family Hippocastanaceae of shrubs and trees. Called also horsechestnut, buckeye. Contains a toxic hydroxycoumarin glycoside esculin in seed pods and shoots; causes depression, tremor, incoordination, paralysis. Includes A. californica (California buckeye), A. glabra (Ohio buckeye), A. hippocastanum (horsechestnut), A. pavia (red buckeye), A. octandra (sweet buckeye).
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categories related to 'horse chestnut'
Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary:
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horse chestnut
See crossword solutions for the clue Horse-chestnut.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Aesculus
For the Ancient Greek playwright, see Aeschylus.
| Aesculus | |
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| Aesculus hippocastanum | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Sapindales |
| Family: | Sapindaceae |
| Subfamily: | Hippocastanoideae |
| Genus: | Aesculus L. |
| Species | |
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The genus Aesculus (
/ˈɛskjʊləs/[1] or /ˈaɪskjʊləs/) comprises 13-19 species of woody trees and shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere, with 6 species native to North America and 7-13 species native to Eurasia; there are also several hybrids. Species are deciduous or evergreen. This genus has traditionally been treated in the ditypic family Hippocastanaceae along with Billia,[2] but recent phylogenetic analysis of morphological[3] and molecular data[4] has led to this family, along with the Aceraceae (Maples and Dipteronia), being included in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae).
Linnaeus named the genus Aesculus after the Roman name for an edible acorn. The Eurasian species are known as horse chestnuts while the North American species are called buckeyes. Some are also called white chestnut or red chestnut (as in some of the Bach flower remedies). In Britain, they are sometimes called conker trees because of their link with the game of conkers, played with the seeds, also called conkers. Aesculus seeds were traditionally eaten, after leaching, by the Jomon people of Japan over about 4 millennia, until 300AD.[5]
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Description
Aesculus species are woody plants from 4 to 36m tall (depending on species), and have stout shoots with resinous, often sticky, buds; opposite, palmately divided leaves, often very large (to 65 cm across in the Japanese horse chestnut Aesculus turbinata). Flowers are showy, insect-pollinated, with four or five petals fused into a lobed corolla tube, arranged in a panicle inflorescence. Flowering starts after 80–110 growing degree days. The fruit matures to a capsule, 2–5 cm diameter, usually globose, containing 1-3 seeds (often erroneously called a nut) per capsule. Capsules containing more than one seed result in seeds being flat on one side. The point of attachment of the seed in the capsule (hilum) shows as a large circular whitish scar. The capsule epidermis has "spines" (botanically: prickles) in some species, other capsules are warty or smooth; capsule splits into three sections to release the seeds.[6][7][8]
The species of Aesculus include:
- Aesculus arguta: Texas buckeye
- Aesculus californica: California buckeye
- Aesculus × carnea: red horse chestnut
- Aesculus chinensis: Chinese horse chestnut
- Aesculus chinensis var. wilsonii: Wilson's horse chestnut
- Aesculus flava (A. octandra): yellow buckeye
- Aesculus glabra: Ohio buckeye
- Aesculus hippocastanum: common horse chestnut
- Aesculus indica: Indian horse chestnut
- Aesculus neglecta: dwarf buckeye
- Aesculus parviflora: bottlebrush buckeye
- Aesculus parryi
- Aesculus pavia: red buckeye
- Aesculus pavia var. flavescens: Texas yellow buckeye, yellow woolly buckeye
- Aesculus sylvatica: painted buckeye
- Aesculus turbinata: Japanese horse chestnut
- Aesculus wangii = Aesculus assamica
Cultivation
The most familiar member of the genus worldwide is the common horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum, native to a small area of the Balkans in southeast Europe, but widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. The yellow buckeye Aesculus flava (syn. A. octandra) is also a valuable ornamental tree with yellow flowers, but is less widely planted. Among the smaller species, the bottlebrush buckeye Aesculus parviflora also makes a very interesting and unusual flowering shrub. Several other members of the genus are used as ornamentals, and several horticultural hybrids have also been developed, most notably the red horse chestnut Aesculus × carnea, a hybrid between A. hippocastanum and A. pavia.
References
- ^ Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607
- ^ Hardin, JW. 1957. A revision of the American Hippocastanaceae I. Brittonia 9:145-171.
- ^ Judd, WS, RW Sanders, MJ Donoghue. 1994. Angiosperm family pairs. Harvard Papers in Botany. 1:1-51.
- ^ MG Harrington, KJ Edwards, SA Johnson, MW Chase. 2005. Phylogenetic inference in Sapindaceae sensu lato using plastid matK and rbcL DNA sequences. Systematic Botany. 30:366–382
- ^ ISBN 0-521-40112-7 _The Living Fields_, by Harlan Jack Rodney, University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain,1995 :15 Harlan cites AkazawaT & AikensCM 1986 _Prehistoric Hunter-Gathers in Japan_ Univ. Tokyo Press, and cites AikensCM & HigachiT1982 _Prehistory of Japan_ NY Academic Press.
- ^ Hardin, JW. 1957. A revision of the American Hippocastanaceae I. Brittonia 9:145-171
- ^ Hardin, JW. 1957. A revision of the American Hippocastanaceae II. Brittonia 9:173-195
- ^ Hardin, JW. 1960. A revision of the American Hippocastanaceae V, Species of the Old World. Brittonia 12:26-38
External links
Media related to Aesculus at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Aesculus at Wikispecies
- Germplasm Resources Information Network: Aesculus
- Forest, F., Drouin, J. N., Charest, R., Brouillet, L., & Bruneau A. (2001). A morphological phylogenetic analysis of Aesculus L. and Billia Peyr. (Sapindaceae). Canad. J. Botany 79 (2): 154-169. Abstract.
- Aesculus glabra (Ohio buckeye) King's American Dispensatory
- Winter ID pictures
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