Rolandvue,2nd Week October: Horse Chestnuts

   One sign of fall is the squirrels gathering and burying nuts (according to a note intended for middle schoolers).  This is true in the neighborhood, squirrels particularly like to bury the chestnuts in planters on the porch which will be moved in for the winter.  We will watch for new chestnut shoots.  The kids know it is not the squirrel activity which is primary but the falling nuts, and even that can be traced further back for its actual causal relationship to the season.

Most animals seem to leave the horse chestnuts alone.  They are falling in similar profusion, and are larger with a smooth rather than spiny capsule.  But depending on the species they contain toxic amounts of tannin or other poisonous compounds such as aescin and saponins.  We left horse chestnut as generic last year but when considering uses it might be helpful to be more specific.  Aesculus hippocastanum bears the greek for horse chestnut and has the horseshoe shaped leaf scars with "seven nails" after the palmate leaves fall.  It has a fruit with spikes, not the smooth husk.

The large trees at the top of Cloverlea and by extension the many smaller buckeyes in the area may be Aesculus flava or the yellow buckeye.  The nut has the smooth capsule typical of our neighborhood.  It is native to the Ohio valley and the Appalachian mountains. The nuts  are toxic to eat but can be treated to leach out the poisons.  The buckeye leaves are falling as well, a little earlier than the oaks, slightly after the lindens. The leaves,at least this year are mostly a dull yellow.

With a little imagination the nuts, with their white basal scar and dark color look like the eye of a deer, thus the common name.  There are medical uses, treatment for venous disease, for extracts of nuts depending on the species.  Conkers, another name for the nuts were used in an English game and as a war time source of chemicals in England.

The first photo shows the fine teeth at the leaf margin, a distinction from Ohio buckeye. The second photo shows the flaking bark on an older buckeye.  The night shadows highlight the plates.  This starts as smooth patterns on the younger trees.