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Buckeyes — Part 2

The base of the leaf stalk leaves a scar on the twig which is strikingly like the print of a horse's hoof. This may have given its name to the tree. Or was it, as Gerarde explains, "for that the people of the east countries do with the fruit thereof cure their horses of the cough, shortness of breath, and such like diseases"? More probably the coarse, large, uneatable nuts are responsible; many rank-growing plants unfit for human food are similarly named, e.g., horse mint, horse nettle, horse sugar.

The great fault of the horse chestnut is that it is continually dropping something. The bud scales first make a considerable litter; then the flowers fall like snow. The unripe fruits drop in all stages, and the leaves that choke to death in the crowded interior turn rusty yellow and drop all summer. It also casts too dense a shade, and in some regions is stripped of its foliage by caterpillars covered with tufts of white hairs--the larvae of the tussock moth. Few people who take thought will choose this tree when elms and hard maples can be had for planting.