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Aesculus
Also called Buckeye, Horsechestnut, Buckeye, Horse Chestnut, Horse Chestnuts, Buckeyes And Horse Chestnuts, Horse Chestnut
Buckeyes and horse-chestnuts are a genus of about 12 trees and shrubs, mostly from the temperate Northern Hemisphere, grown for their showy spring flowers and large leaves. Commonly grown members include the common horse-chestnut, yellow buckeye and bottlebrush 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.
The most familiar member of the genus worldwide is the common horse-chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum. The yellow buckeye, Aesculus flava (syn. A. octandra), is also a valuable ornamental tree with yellow flowers, but is less widely planted. Among the smaller species is the bottlebrush buckeye, A. parviflora, a flowering shrub. Several other members of the genus are used as ornamental plants, and several horticultural hybrids have also been developed, most notably the red horse-chestnut Aesculus × carnea, a hybrid between A. hippocastanum and A. pavia.
Aesculus is mostly native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, but one species (A. assamica) into subtropical areas of southeast Asia. The genus exhibits a classical Arcto-Tertiary distribution.
Aesculus seeds were traditionally eaten, after leaching, by the Jōmon people of Japan over about four millennia, until 300 AD.
California buckeye · Yellow buckeye · Ohio buckeye · Horse-chestnut · Indian Horse Chestnut · Bottlebrush Buckeye · Red buckeye
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aesculus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
