WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
West Virginia Trees cover

West Virginia Trees

Chapter 113: FETID BUCKEYE
By A. B. Brooks
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

FETID BUCKEYE

Aesculus glabra, Willd.

Form.—Height 30-60 feet, diameter 12-20 inches; trunk short supporting a deep, round-topped crown.

Leaves.—Opposite, digitately compound, leaflets usually 5, 3-6 inches long, oval, tapered at base, sharp-pointed, irregularly and finely toothed, pale green above, paler beneath, smooth, when old. The foliage is ill-smelling when bruised.

Flowers.—April-May; polygamo-monoecious or perfect; most of the flowers with imperfect pistils; borne in downy terminal panicles 5-6 inches long; corolla yellow.

Fruit.—Matures in October; a leathery round or pear-shaped prickly pod or capsule about 1 inch in diameter, containing a large, shining, brown nut.

Bark.—Roughened by even, scaly, broken gray ridges.

Wood.—Light, soft, weak, pale yellow.

Range.—Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Iowa and Oklahoma.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Common along the Ohio River at Wheeling. Reported from Wirt, Gilmer and Monongalia counties and from points along the Ohio River north of Wheeling.

Habitat.—Moist soils of river banks and ravines.

Notes.—The Fetid or Ohio Buckeye is an unimportant tree of stream borders, confined in its distribution here principally to the western part of the State. It can easily be distinguished when in fruit from the common species, next described, by its prickly pods. This tree is sometimes planted on lawns but is less desirable than its European relative the Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum).