{"id":11937,"date":"2015-09-15T13:04:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T20:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=11937"},"modified":"2015-09-11T06:55:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T13:55:38","slug":"horse-chestnut-root-and-branch-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/horse-chestnut-root-and-branch-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Horse Chestnut &#8211; Root and Branch Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Horse Chestnut tree by JeanM1, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jeanm1\/5646047295\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5144\/5646047295_4ec898155e.jpg\" alt=\"Horse Chestnut tree\" width=\"500\" height=\"343\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Conker collecting has encouraged many a stick to be thrown into a Horse Chestnut tree. The candle or flower heads are even more spectacular than the crop of conkers that they give birth too.<\/p>\n<h2>Key Features of the Horse Chestnut<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Latin name<\/strong> Aesculus Hippocastanum buckeye in USA or Conker tree<\/li>\n<li><strong>Height<\/strong> up to 130 feet<\/li>\n<li><strong>Type of tree<\/strong> &#8211; deciduous &#8211;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leaves <\/strong> &#8211; Large green palmate with 5-7 fingers or leaflets<\/li>\n<li><strong>Flowers<\/strong> White or pink candle shaped upright panicles<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fruit <\/strong> Green spiky spherical husks containing a glossy brown inedible seed or conker<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bark<\/strong> Dark brown, coarse and scaly when mature<\/li>\n<li><strong>Family<\/strong> Aesculus has about 20 species<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Conkers by MamaPyjama, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mamapyjama\/1468969298\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1061\/1468969298_522ba3f449.jpg\" alt=\"Conkers\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Origins and Distribution of the Horse Chestnut<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Native to the Balkans.<\/li>\n<li>Planted in temperate zones as an ornamental specimen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Uses and Attributes of the Horse Chestnut<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Distilled the conkers make acetone.<\/li>\n<li>The seed extracts were used for fulling cloth and whitening hemp, flax, silk and wool.<\/li>\n<li>Herbally used to treat varicose veins and haemorrhoids.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Gardeners Tips for the Horse Chestnut<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Used along avenues, parks and in churchyards.<\/li>\n<li>Horse Chestnuts can make large bonsai.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\" horse chestnut candles in the wind by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/3541580327\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3359\/3541580327_b62ce6c497.jpg\" alt=\"candles in the wind\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Other types of Horse Chestnut and key species<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Texas, californian and other american buckeye or Aesculus species.<\/li>\n<li>Aesculus \u00c3\u2014 carnea the red horse chestnut.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Horse Chestnut comments from elsewhere<\/h2>\n<p>In Britain, the return to school after the summer holidays is synonymous with conkers. Originally played with cobnuts or snail shells, the use of the horse chestnut in the popular children&#8217;s game was first recorded in 1848. Since 1965, the World Conker Championships have taken place every year in Oundle, Northamptonshire. <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.kew.org\/trees\/?page_id=98\">Kew.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The fruits of this tree vaguely resemble those of the (Sweet) Chestnut tree but they are not related. They develop in prickly cases, and are ripe in September and October &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldconkerchampionships.com\/html\/conkers_about.html\">the &#8216;conker&#8217; season.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read about our series on British tree reviews with a bakers dozen <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=12342\"> fact sheets<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Credits<br \/>\n&#8220;Horse Chestnut tree by JeanM1 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<br \/>\n&#8220;Conkers by MamaPyjama CC BY 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scented ornamental flowers on a grand tree that produces conkers for kids games but no food value for humans or farmyard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,251],"tags":[254,248],"class_list":["post-11937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flowers","category-tree-root-and-branch","tag-best-british","tag-photo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}