Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Sapindales > Sapindaceae > Aesculus > Aesculus hippocastanum

Aesculus hippocastanum (horse chestnut)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Aesculus hippocastanum is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is a large deciduous, synoecious tree, commonly known as horse-chestnut or conker tree.
View Wikipedia Record: Aesculus hippocastanum

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Aesculus hippocastanum

Attributes

Air Quality Improvement [1]  Low
Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Carbon Capture [1]  Medium-High
Shade Percentage [1]  88 %
Temperature Reduction [1]  High
Wind Reduction [1]  Medium
Bee Flower Color [2]  Blue-Green
Flower Color [2]  White
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [3]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [3]  The seed is rich in saponins; Although poisonous, saponins are poorly absorbed by the human body and so most pass through without harm. Saponins are quite bitter and can be found in many common foods such as some beans. They can be removed by carefully leaching the seed or flour in running water. Thorough cooking, and perhaps changing the cooking water once, will also normally remove most of them. However, it is not advisable to eat large quantities of food that contain saponins. Saponins are much more toxic to some creatures, such as fish, and hunting tribes have traditionally put large quantities of them in streams, lakes etc in order to stupefy or kill the fish;
Janka Hardness [4]  880 lbf (399 kgf) Soft
Leaf Type [3]  Deciduous
Lifespan [5]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Bees
Scent [3]  The flowers have a delicate honey-like perfume.
Specific Gravity [7]  0.5
Structure [3]  Tree
Usage [3]  Saponins in the seed are used as a soap substitute; The saponins can be easily obtained by chopping the seed into small pieces and infusing them in hot water. This water can then be used for washing the body, clothes etc. Its main drawback is a lingering odour of horse chestnuts; The seed contains variable amounts of saponins, up to a maximum of 10%; A starch obtained from the seed is used in laundering; The bark and other parts of the plant contain tannin, but the quantities are not given; A yellow dye is obtained from the bark; The flowers contain the dyestuff quercetin; Wood - soft, light, not durable. Of little commercial value, it is used for furniture, boxes, charcoal;
Height [3]  98 feet (30 m)
Width [3]  49 feet (15 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 4 Low Temperature: -30 F° (-34.4 C°) → -20 F° (-28.9 C°)
Hardiness Zone Maximum [1]  USDA Zone: 7 Low Temperature: 0 F° (-17.8 C°) → 10 F° (-12.2 C°)
Light Preference [6]  Mixed Sun/Shade
Soil Acidity [6]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [6]  Rich
Soil Moisture [6]  Moist
Water Use [1]  Moderate
View Plants For A Future Record : Aesculus hippocastanum

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Consumers

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1i-Tree Species v. 4.0, developed by the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and SUNY-ESF using the Horticopia, Inc. plant database.
♦ 2Arnold SEJ, Faruq S, Savolainen V, McOwan PW, Chittka L, 2010 FReD: The Floral Reflectance Database — A Web Portal for Analyses of Flower Colour. PLoS ONE 5(12): e14287.
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4Wood Janka Hardness Scale/Chart J W Morlan's Unique Wood Gifts
♦ 5PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 6ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 7Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 8Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 9HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 10Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 11Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 12New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 13Ecology of Commanster
♦ 14Robertson, C. Flowers and insects lists of visitors of four hundred and fifty three flowers. 1929. The Science Press Printing Company Lancaster, PA.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0