Trees & Shrubs of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Ohio Buckeye is a tree with a rounded crown that can grow to 70 feet in height.

Bark is smooth on young wood, gray, then develops corky patches, eventually becoming rough and dark gray.

Twigs are thick with a shield shaped leaf scar resembling a monkey face, opposite lateral buds and much larger terminal buds. Buds are orangish brown and not sticky, light colored with fine hair on the scales. In Spring the buds swell and elongate with the scales turning pinkish. Young new twigs are green, turning reddish and finally gray after the 2nd or 3rd year. Young twigs have light colored lenticles.

The leaves are opposite and palmately compound, with 5 to 7 leaflets that are elliptical and unevenly saw-toothed, dark green smooth surface above and paler below. Crushed leaves give off an unpleasant odor.

The inflorescence is an upright terminal panicle at the end of new growth twigs.

The flowers are bisexual, individually stalked, with a long yellow to greenish-yellow calyx tube that has 5 lobes and fine hair. There are 4 petals, creamy color to pale yellow which also have fine hair on their edges. The two upper petals have a reddish patch near their base. The two lateral petals tend to spread outwards and have a smaller reddish patch. All 4 petals have clawed bases (the forward parts are larger). There are 7 stamens with orange-red anthers and a style.

The fruit is a round (1 to 2 inch) initially spiny capsule that contains one to three dark brown nuts that mature in the fall. Capsules are rather thin walled and easily opened. The seeds are poisonous to humans (but not squirrels) and will readily produce new trees if protected from squirrels. Nuts readily germinate and many young trees may result.

Habitat: Ohio Buckeye is a tree of the mixed hardwood forest, growing in moist to somewhat dry soils. Young trees can survive for a time under the canopy but for maturity must have sunlight. These trees are fast growers and in groups, may dominate an area.

Names: The genus Aesculus is the Latin name for a nut-bearing oak but Linnaeus applied it to a group of Horse Chestnuts. The species glabra, means 'without hairs' and is used here for the stems and leaves that are without hair. The author name for the plant classification - ‘Willd.’ is for Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812), German botanist, a founder of the study of the geographic distribution of plants. He was director and curator of the Botanic Garden of Berlin. The alternate common name of "fetid buckeye" refers to an unpleasant odor of crushed leaves and twigs. This tree has recently been reclassified by botanists into the Sapindaceae family which includes all the maples. It used to be in the Horse Chestnut family (Hippocastanaceae) and some reference sites will still list it there.