Early morning Spring sunshine lights up a the leaves of a horse chestnut tree. Aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut, is a species of flowerin
Early morning Spring sunshine lights up a the leaves of a horse chestnut tree. Aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It’s a deciduous, synoecious (the flower are hermaphroditic) tree. The tree is also called European horse chestnut, buckeye or Spanish chestnut but most importantly it is a conker tree, a common tree in the United Kingdom the seeds, hidden in a spiky green exterior, being hard and woody called conkers and used for a kid’s game, the seeds are, however, poisonous to eat. The leaves have 5-7 leaflets each 13-20cm long making a whole leaf that can extent to 60cm across. It a claim to fame, during the First World War people were asked to collect the seeds to donate to the government where they were used as a source of starch for fermentation to produce acetone used in the production of cordite. The seeds aren’t unique for this process, any source of starch will do but to avoid risk to vital food supplies using conkers would not detract from the supply but turns out they were a poor source of starch and the effort abandoned. Not to be deterred they tried again in the Second world War. The seeds are said to repel spiders, that’s entirely untrue as the collection kept by my aunt for that very purpose was where the spiders hung out. More usefully, prior to refrigeration, in Bavaria trees were planted over lager cellars as their dense canopies would protect the cellars from Summer heat and not be risked because the trees have shallow roots. The practice of serving beer at these sites evolved into modern beer gardens.
Size: 4608px × 3456px
Location: East Sussex
Photo credit: © Chris Page / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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