description
Aesculus hippocastanum, a member of the Sapindaceae family, grows to 36
metres (118 ft) tall, with a domed crown of stout branches; on old trees the
outer branches often pendulous with curled-up tips. The leaves are opposite
and palmately compound, with 5–7 leaflets; each leaflet is 13–30 cm long,
making the whole leaf up to 60 cm across, with a 7–20 cm petiole.
The leaf
scars left on twigs after the leaves have fallen have a distinctive
horseshoe shape, complete with seven "nails". When tree flowers in spring the flowers are usually white
with a small red spot. The are produced in erect panicles 10–30
cm tall with about 20–50 flowers on each panicle. Usually only 1–5 fruit
develop on each panicle.
The shell is a green and spiky capsule and it contains one
(or more rarely two or three) nut-like seeds called conkers or horse chestnuts. Each
conker can grow in diameter from approximately 2 to 4cm (roughly the size of a golf ball) and is a glossy nut-brown with a whitish scar at its base.
common names & nomenclature
The common name Conker Treeresults from the popular children's game
"conkers", played in Britain and Ireland, wherein the nuts are drilled
and hung from string to be struck against each other.
The common name "horse chestnut"
is reported as having originated from the erroneous belief that the tree was
a kind of chestnut (though in fact only distantly related), combined with
the observation that eating the fruit cured horses of chest complaints. This
assertion is most likely apocryphal as this plant is poisonous to horses.
Also known as:
horse chestnut, buckeye, conker tree