Horse Chestnuts

European Horse Chestnut:
Aesculus hippocastanum, the horse chestnut, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is a large deciduous, synoecious tree. It is also called horse-chestnut, European horsechestnut, buckeye, and conker tree.

These are not the edible kind of chestnuts. Those are the sweet chestnuts and their botanical name is: Castanea sativa. Their outer pod is quite different.


We picked up these rich brown shiny conkers from the outside parking space which was underneath some chestnut trees. They were falling down constantly and we were lucky not to have one single one fall on our heads, especially with the hard, spiky protection!  My friend and I picked them up as they fell, just as excited as kids in the school playground! 


There were horse-chestnut trees in my primary school yard and I remember how we kids loved picking them up in the autumn!