Keyed Out #104 — Aesculus hippocastanum

Question 1

Bark, leaf and seed are all loaded with bitter frothing compounds that lather in water like laundry suds, and the same chemistry leaves the big glossy seeds poisonous rather than a sweet roasting nut.

Accepted Answer

soapberry family

Question 2

Most flowers on each upright spire bear {stamens} only and drop without setting fruit, and a fleshy lobed {nectary} ring sits at the base of the {stamens}, rather than every flower being perfect with its {petals} fused into a short tube.

Accepted Answer

Sapindaceae

Question 3

Each leaf hangs from one long stalk and splits at the tip into five to seven stalkless {leaflets} spreading like the fingers of a hand, set in opposing pairs up the twig, not a single blade merely cut into lobes nor {leaflets} ranked in pairs along a central axis.

Accepted Answer

Aesculus

Question 4

Through winter its bare shoots are tipped with fat dark red-brown resting buds 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) long, varnished in a resin sticky enough to pull at a glove, rather than small dull scales you would barely notice or no resting bud at all.

Accepted Answer

Aesculus

Question 5

The green fruit case, 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) across, is armed all over with stout sharp spines, neither smooth-skinned nor merely roughened with blunt warts.

Accepted Answer

Aesculus hippocastanum

Question 6

Each bloom opens white with a yellow throat blotch that turns crimson once bees have worked it, rather than opening pink or scarlet and staying that colour.

Accepted Answer

Aesculus hippocastanum