Plant Family: Sapindaceae
Growth Form: Large handsome tree with a broad, spreading crown.
Leaves / Buds: Opposite, palmate compound, large, usually with 7 leaflets. The buds are large, black, and quite sticky.
Bark: Dark gray to brown, broken into many irregular scaly plates.
Flowers: White with red and yellow markings, held on showy upright panicles up to 30 cm long, appearing May to June.
Fruits: Thick green prickly husks, to 4 cm in diameter, which ripen to brown; inside are 1 or 2 large shiny brown seeds, which unlike the true chestnuts, are not edible.
Habitat: Needs deep fertile soil, will not do well in dry soils.
Range: Native to the Balkans in Europe, planted as an ornamental throughout much of the United States and in temperate zone countries around the world. It is naturalized in several locations in New England.
Key Features: The large palmate leaves will identify Horsechestnut; it is also one of the deciduous trees easy to identify in winter by the large, black, sticky buds.
Comments: The seeds are called conkers in Great Britain and Ireland, and are used to play a children’s game of the same name.
