Another plant ID

[pdqdl]

I went to the Kansas City Zoo today; they have all kinds of exotic plants mixed in with the common plants I see all the time.

Here is one that might fool you.





This is not a native species of tree, but an escaped import from Europe. You may have seen this before.

 

[JeffGu]

Some kind of Buckeye, maybe?

 

[ATH]

Yes...Aesculus for sure.

My first guess is A. hippocastanum...but some of those leaves look a little too serrated. But wikipedia says that is the only European species. So I'll stick with it.

 

[JeffGu]

Yeah... the European origin didn't register... horse chestnut of some kind, then...

I'm not even going to try anything more specific... it will just turn out to be some rare cultivar or a species only found at the foot of a hill just outside of a town nobody goes to.

 

[pdqdl]

Yes...Aesculus for sure.

My first guess is A. hippocastanum...but some of those leaves look a little too serrated. But wikipedia says that is the only European species. So I'll stick with it.

You got it, at least as far as I can tell.

All the buckeye variations seem to come with 5 leaflets, the horse chestnut comes with 7. Flower color is a match, as well. You sharp eyed guys need to look at my next thread. I am pretty clueless as to what it might be.

 

[ATH]

I was in a woods last Friday that had a lot of Ohio buckeye throughout the understory. There were a few seedlings/saplings that had 5 or 7 leaflets per leaf. I got distracted and forgot to grab some for a closer look... I think Yellow buckeye (A. flava) can rarely have 7 leaflets. I didn't think Ohio could.