When an English lad speaks of a chestnut, he means the horse-chestnut,
and the chances are that he does not know anything about the American
trees, whose sweet nuts we gather in the woods at home after the frost
has opened their spiny burs. In America the European tree is planted very
commonly for ornament and shade, and it is always called horse-chestnut
here, except by English cousins who may be visiting us.
They ask us why we put the word “horse” before this tree’s name. For
answer we pull down a twig, snap off a leaf, and show the scar of the
leaf’s attachment to the twig. It is somewhat like the print of a horse’s
hoof on the ground. Even the horseshoe nails are there, for a thread from
each leaflet goes down through the leaf stem, and its fibres are buried
in the twig. There are five or seven of these nail prints in the scar,
depending upon the number of leaflets. Five is the usual number, but
seven is not at all unusual.
An old tradition states that the people of Eastern countries feed these
chestnuts to their horses to cure them of cough, shortness of breath, and
other lung disorders. Upon this is based a second claim for using the
word “horse” before this tree’s name. The quality of the fruit, however,
is probably the best answer to the question. The coarse, large nuts are
not fit for human food. It is quite common to think that horses can eat
things too rank for our more fastidious taste. Horse sugar is the name of
a small tree whose sweetish twigs are browsed upon by cattle and horses
in wooded pastures. Horse-radish and horse-mint are coarser, more
rank-growing kinds of plants, than their closely related species which
are used for human food.
We shall know the horse-chestnut in the dead of winter by the large buds,
the large hoof-print leaf scars, and by the pyramidal form of the tree.
The twigs are stout, and they turn upward so that the largest of the
varnished buds are held up like candles. The main branches leave the
trunk with an upward curve, then bend outward and downward, then up again
to hold the buds upright. The tree looks, therefore, like a great complex
candlestick, with many arms and many candles. The twigs are stout, and
they come out opposite each other on the branch. This is a peculiarity of
few trees. It belongs to all of the members of the horse-chestnut family,
which includes the buckeye trees, our native horse-chestnuts.
In early spring, watch the horse-chestnut tree outside your windows and
along the streets as they begin to swell, and until they finally open.
The tree lights all its candles when the brown, varnished outer bud
scales fall, and the soft, silky inner ones, yellow as a candle flame,
are revealed. On the side twigs the buds are smaller than on the tips.
Out of each small bud comes a bunch of leaves. Out of the big buds come
the flowers.
In June a big horse-chestnut tree holds up a thousand pyramids of white
blossoms. Below each flower duster is an umbrella-like circle of leaves.
Each blossom of the dense spike has in its throat dashes of yellow and
red. The petals form a ruffled border. The curving stamens are thrust far
out. Bees come in search of pollen and nectar.
After the flowers pass, green fruits appear, a few in a cluster, and all
covered with spines. Not many of these reach full size. It seems to be
enough for the tree to ripen one or two fruits in a cluster. In the
autumn they turn brown, and the husk splits into three equal parts. Out
of this spreading husk the brown nuts fall.
Now the boys assail the tree with sticks and stones, and the harvest of
nuts is on. Who does not love them for their beauty alone? The great
white spot is the place where they were attached to the husk. The kernel
is as bitter as gall, and I know of no animal which eats it. If any one
counts them useless, let him see the hoards of them which children
gather, and use in their play. He will change his mind completely. Their
glowing, soft colour is a feast to the eye, and they just fit the hand.