The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Aesculus flava
Also called Sweet Buckeye
Yellow buckeye is a large deciduous shade tree native to the Ohio Valley and Appalachians, valued for its yellow spring flowers and fall color. It needs full sun, deep moist well-drained soil, and plenty of room because it is large and messy.
Aesculus flava, also known commonly as the common buckeye, the sweet buckeye, and the yellow buckeye, is a species of deciduous tree in the Hippocastanaceae family. The species is native to the Ohio Valley and Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States. It grows in mesophytic forests or floodplains, generally in acidic to circumneutral soil, reaching a height of 20 to 48 m (66 to 157 ft).
Aesculus flava is cultivated as an ornamental tree. The tree's showy yellow flowers and good autumn color are attractive in larger gardens and in parks. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
This tree has a coarse texture and leaves that are dark that attract attention as a specimen plant. This tree is not a good fit for small areas and needs to be put in a large open area in order to form due to its size. Aesculus flava tends to produce large amounts of leaf and flower litter in the summer and fall. The fruit makes good food for wildlife but can produce undesirable litter in urban areas. The nectar from the flowers attracts hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects, the nuts attract squirrels.
The seed is very rich in toxic saponins that are poorly absorbed in the human body, but can pass through without harm. Poisoning from saponins is rare but abdominal pain is possible. The fruit is poisonous but can be made edible through a leaching process.
The yellow buckeye is most successful in full sun in moist, rich, well-drained, seep and slightly acidic soils. Poor clay or dry soils is not the best conditions for the yellow buckeye, but it can tolerate short flooding and urban conditions. The yellow buckeye can be found in rich soils on river bottoms, stream banks and mountain slopes in southwestern Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Georgia and can also be down the Ohio River valley reaching to Illinois.
The largest of the buckeyes, the Native Americans historically made food from the seeds, after the removal of the toxic element by roasting and soaking. The seed contains saponins and needs to be leached of toxins before it can be eaten, the North American Indians would do so by slow-roasting the nuts, cut them into thin slices, put them in a cloth bag to be rinsed in the stream for 2–3 days. The seed can be 45 mm in diameter and is said to be bitter, but when cooked, is said to be as sweet as a chestnut.
California buckeye · Ohio buckeye · Horse-chestnut · Indian Horse Chestnut · Bottlebrush Buckeye · Red buckeye · Buckeyes & Horse-chestnuts
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aesculus flava 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
