Buckeyes

A little valley adorned with California Buckeyes (Aesculus californica) - they're interesting trees, especially at this time of year when the nuts are on the trees but the leaves are gone, revealing the tangle of twigs. The nut is like a big, soft, horse-chestnut, but the tree is not very chestnutty at all. A long time ago I was told that in the Santa Cruz mountains any buckeyes are the descendants of ones planted by the native Americans, since it's a little outside their natural range.