Tree of the Week – Part 2: The Horse Chestnut

in Latest News / Trees  by March 20, 2017 0 comments

Tree_of_the_week_2_Horse_chestnut

Horse Chestnut – Aesculus hippocastanum

Number 2 in our Tree of the Week blog is the gorgeous Horse Chestnut – most of you will know it as the Conker tree, but there’s more to this beauty than playing games with its big, shiny seeds!

This is a non-native tree which was introduced from mainland Greece and Bulgaria in the 17th century. In its home environment, Horse Chestnuts grow on rocky cliff faces yet it was grown in parklands and large gardens as an individual ‘statement’ tree because of its large, graceful canopy. Unfortunately, it is now threatened and considered to be Endangered in its native range of the Central Balkan peninsula.

Tree of the Week Facts, figures and legends!

  • Easily recognisable thanks to its huge, palmate (or hand-shaped) leaves and those glorious conkers at the end of summer. However, it’s also easy to identify in the winter – it has some of the biggest, stickiest reddish-brown buds.
  • The latin name Aesculus comes form the Roman name for edible acorns?! The ‘hippo’ part of hippocastanum refers to horses and this could be for a number of reasons. The Turks used conkers to treat bruises on their horses and the leaf scar (left behind when a leaf’s stem breaks away from a branch) looks like a horse-shoe with nail holes.
  • The largest Horse Chestnut in the UK can be found on the National Trust’s Hughendon estate, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. It measures 7.33m (24ft) around its girth and is believed to be over 300 years old!
  • The largest conker championship consisted of 395 participants in an event organized by the Hampstead Heath Education Centre (UK) in London, UK, on 9 October 2011. The conker championship is held every year as a way to engage Londoners with their environment. (Source: Guinness Book of Records 2017)
  • Tree of the week 2 Horse Chestnut close-up of bud and leaf scars

    Horse Chestnut – big sticky bud and leaf scars

    Tree of the week Horse Chestnut

    Horse Chestnut ‘candelabra’ of flowers

Personal favourites/recommendations/wish list trees:

You can find out loads more about Horse Chestnut trees on websites such as:

Nature’s Calendar

Woodland Trust

Come back next week for Tree of the Week – Part 3!