Aesculus

The genus Aesculus ( ) is a genus of about 12 species of flowering plants in the family Sapindaceae. They are trees and shrubs, mostly native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The European and Asian species are known as horse-chestnut or horse chestnut, and the North American species as buckeye.

The genus Aesculus ( ) is a genus of about 12 species of flowering plants in the family Sapindaceae. They are trees and shrubs, mostly native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The European and Asian species are known as horse-chestnut or horse chestnut, and the North American species as buckeye. ==Description== Aesculus species are shrubs or trees growing to tall. They have stout shoots with resinous, often sticky, buds, with opposite, palmately divided, deciduous, leaves; these are often very large, to across in the Japanese horse-chestnut A. turbinata. The flowers are showy, insect- or bird-pollinated, with four or five petals fused into a lobed corolla tube, arranged in a panicle inflorescence. Flowering is in spring or summer, from February (rarely January) in A. assamica to July (rarely August) in A. indica and A. parviflora; some species may have a small second flowering in autumn. The fruit matures to a capsule diameter, usually globose, containing one to three seeds (often erroneously called a nut) per capsule. Capsules containing more than one seed result in flatness on one side of the seeds. 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, while in others the capsules are warty or smooth. At maturity, the capsule splits into three sections to release the seeds. ==Taxonomy== The horse-chestnut A. hippocastanum was unknown to botanical science until 1596, when the Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius was given foliage and flowers in Vienna; it was then introduced further west, with the first plants reaching France in 1603, and Britain between 1612–1615. Carl Linnaeus named the genus Aesculus after the Roman name for an edible acorn. The genus was considered to be in the ditypic family Hippocastanaceae along with Billia, but phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data have more recently caused this family, along with the Aceraceae (maples and Dipteronia), to be included in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae). ==In culture== in Paris In Geneva, Switzerland, an official chestnut tree is used to indicate the beginning of spring; every year since 1818, the tree is observed by the secretary of the Grand Council of Geneva (the local parliament), and the opening of the first leaf is recorded and announced publicly. Over the years, four different horse chestnut trees have been used for these recordings. During his 1840 US presidential campaign, candidate William Henry Harrison called himself the "log cabin and hard cider candidate", portraying himself sitting in a log cabin made of buckeye logs and drinking hard cider, causing Ohio to become known as "the Buckeye State". The leaf of Aesculus was the official symbol of Kyiv on its coat of arms used from 1969 to 1995. It remains an official symbol of Kyiv. ==References== ==External links== 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)". Can. J. Bot. 79 (2): 154–169. . Aesculus glabra (Ohio buckeye) King's American Dispensatory Winter ID pictures

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