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Buckeyes

Hi everyone,

Maura mentioned California buckeye (Aesculus californica), and this
reminded me of a discussion a couple of years ago about this species. I'm
quite a fan of Aesculus, of which there is a frequently planted species
in Europe, the horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), which makes a big
tree with white flowers spotted inside with yellow and pink. I actually
saw it growing and flowering wild in NW Greece in May 1996, clinging to
limestone ledges of the precipitous Vikos Gorge in the N. Pindos
mountains. It has a very restricted native range: just N Greece, Albania
and S. former Yugoslavia (SW Bulgaria too?). The genus crops up again in
China, and also in N. America.

I don't know much about the N. American species and would be interested
to hear about people's experiences of the one in California. What does it
look like? What sort of places does it grow?

Here in Missouri we have Aesculus glabra, the Ohio buckeye, which is a
medium sized tree with pale greenish yellow flowers open right now. Down
in SE Missouri there's also Aesculus pavia, the red buckeye, which Bob 
Beer was telling me he has in cultivation in Seattle. On Saturday I saw it
growing wild, flowering profusely in a moist, sandy wood amid a large and
luxuriant drift of May apples (Podophyllum peltatum, Berberidaceae). It's
more of an understorey shrub than a tree, with regular buckeye leaves
(i.e. palmate), and 6-inch racemes of very showy red flowers. It looks as
if it would make a nice garden shrub.

Here at the Missouri Botanical Garden we have a large patch of another 
buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, which is endemic to Georgia and Alabama. 
It's a suckering shrub about 8 feet tall, later flowering than the other 
species. The buds seems to take ages to develop into open flowers (which 
are white and very showy): last year they opened (I think) in late June.

Nick.
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