ÆSCULUS CALIFORNICA, Californian Buckeye
- Æsculus californica, Nuttall, in Torrey and Gray, Fl. N. America, i. 251 (1839); Bot. Mag. t. 5077 (1858); Sargent, Silva N. America, ii. 61, tt. 71, 72, and Man. Trees. N. America, 648 (1905); Bean, in Gard. Chron. 1902, xxxi. 187, fig. 57.
A tree, attaining in America 40 feet in height, with a short trunk occasionally 9 feet in girth, Bark smooth, grey or white. Leaves with slender grooved petioles. Leaflets five to seven, stalked, oblong lanceolate, acuminate at the apex, cuneate or obtuse at the base, shallowly and crenately serrate, pale glabrescent beneath. Terminal leaflet, with ten to twelve pairs of nerves. Flowers in dense pubescent panicles, 3 to 8 inches long. Calyx two-lipped, upper lip with three teeth, lower lip with two teeth much shorter than the four narrow oblong petals, which are white or pale rose in colour. Stamens five to seven, long, erect, exserted. Ovary pubescent. Fruit pear-shaped, two to three inches long, smooth, pale brown.
In summer it is readily distinguished from the other species with viscid buds by the small leaves, pale beneath. In winter the twigs are slender, grey, glabrous, with numerous lenticels. Leaf-scars wide apart, joined by a linear ridge, flat on the twig, without a leaf-cushion, crescentic or semicircular, with a row of five to seven bundle-dots. Pith large, circular, white. Terminal buds, larger than the lateral buds, which arise at an acute angle, oval, pointed, glistening with white resin; scales gaping at the apex of the bud, broadly ridged on the back, ciliate in margin, with a tuft of hairs at the apex.
The species is a native of California, where it grows on the banks of streams. A very striking picture of a tree, at San Mateo, California, is given in Garden and Forest, iv. 523. It shows a very short forked bole, nearly 20 feet in girth at 2 feet from the ground, and an immense umbrella-shaped head only 32 feet high and 60 feet in diameter, densely covered all over with flowers.
It was introduced in 1855 by Messrs. Veitch, and flowered in their nursery at Exeter in 1858. It fruited[1] at the Bath Botanic Gardens in 1901, and again in 1905, though it remains a shrub. It is perfectly hardy in the south of England, and is remarkable for the beauty of its flowers, which appear in June and July. The best specimen we know of in the country is one which Elwes found growing in a shrubbery at Hutley Towers near Ryde, Isle of Wight. It is about 30 feet high, and was in flower on June 22, 1906.(A.H.)
- ↑ Gard. Chron. 1902, xxxi. 187.
