''Aesculus glabra'', commonly known as Ohio buckeye,''Aesculus glabra''
Missouri Botanical Garden is a species of tree in the soapberry family ( Sapindaceae) native to North America. Its natural range is primarily in the

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

and lower Great Plains regions of the United States, extending southeast into the geological Black Belt of Alabama and Mississippi. It is also found locally in the extreme southwest of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, on Walpole Island in Lake St. Clair. It is found in a variety of natural habitats, including streambanks, upland mesic forests, and along the margins of old fields. It is typically found in

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an ad ...

areas.

Description

The leaves are palmately compound with five long and broad. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s are produced in panicles in spring, red, yellow to yellow-green, each flower long with the stamens longer than the petals (unlike the related yellow buckeye, where the stamens are shorter than the petals). The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

is a round capsule diameter, containing one nut-like

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

, in diameter, brown with a whitish basal scar. The inedible seeds contain

tannic acid Tannic acid is a specific form of tannin, a type of polyphenol. Its weak acidity ( pKa around 6) is due to the numerous phenol groups in the structure. The chemical formula for commercial tannic acid is often given as C76H52O46, which corresp ...

and are poisonous to both

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

and humans. The young foliage, shoots, and bark are also poisonous to some degree.Ohio Buckeye, in Silvics Manual Volume 2: Hardwoods
USDA Forest Service However, Native Americans reportedly did eat buckeye fruit after boiling it to extract tannin.

Uses

''Aesculus glabra'' has little use as a timber tree due to its soft, light wood. Although occasionally seen in cultivation, the large, copiously produced fruits make it generally undesirable as a street tree.

Native American ethnobotany

The Lenape carry the nuts in their pockets for rheumatism, and an infusion of ground nuts is mixed with sweet oil or mutton tallow for earaches. They also grind the nuts and use them to poison fish in streams. Native Americans blanched buckeye nuts, extracting the tannic acid for use in making leather. The nuts can also be dried, turning dark as they harden with exposure to the air, and strung into necklaces similar to those made from the kukui nut in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

Culture

The Ohio buckeye is the state tree of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, and its name is an original term of endearment for the pioneers on the Ohio frontier. Subsequently, "buckeye" came to be used as the nickname and colloquial name for people from Ohio.

The Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publi ...

adopted "Buckeyes" officially as its nickname in 1950, and also uses the name for its sports teams. It came to be applied to any student or graduate of the university. Buckeye candy, made to resemble the tree's nut, is made by dipping a ball of peanut butter fudge in milk chocolate, leaving a circle of the peanut butter exposed. These are a popular treat in Ohio, especially during the

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

and college football seasons. Buckeyes (the nuts) are a recurring theme in

Bill Watterson William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is a retired American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip ''Calvin and Hobbes'', which was Print syndication, syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at ...

's comic, ''

Calvin and Hobbes ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has enjoyed b ...

'', often as one of Calvin's tools of torment. Watterson himself grew up in

Chagrin Falls Chagrin Falls is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States and is a suburb of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio's Cleveland-Akron-Canton metropolitan area, the 19th-largest Combined Statistical Area nationwide. The village was established and h ...

, Ohio.

References

External links