Botanically speaking, a buckeye (Aesculus californica) is a horse chestnut. It is a native Californian, but it has been planted as an ornamental in several other parts of the world and deserves to be better known in others.
It isn’t a big tree, as such things go, for its maximum height is around 40 feet. But it is broad and densely branched. It is essentially a tree for mild climates, for it simply cannot stand genuine cold.
When the gracefully pointed leaflets are well grown, the flowers come, white or light rose in color, rather picturesquely formed, and massed in roughly cylindrical sprays that curve gracefully. And every one of them is out in the open where it can be seen to best advantage.
Then, in summer, you will begin to notice the development of the 2-inch nuts, each in its thin-skinned green case that yellows slightly as the days of maturity approach. In all the world I know of no nut as intriguing as a well-ripened buckeye. On one side, where the base of the husk had been, there is a round, pale area like the pupil of a great eye in reverse – the obvious origin of the name buckeye, or buck’s eye.
The buckeye’s disadvantage? It litters the ground with flowers and nuts. And you cannot eat the nuts.
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