Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

I have a plant I can't figure out what it is... I actual have two trees of the same thing and one has white flowers and the one in question has red flowers. The white one never makes any seeds but the red one does, only about three to five seeds a year...... on the whole tree. I have been trying to get them to grow for about 4 years with no luck.... until now... what I did is put the seeds in the frig. for about three months and then put it in a plastic container for a month that held the moisture in & the seeds started to swell and start to grow... We have buckeye trees here in the area but they get really big, my tree is about 20+ or so years old and only about 15'- 20' tall I am guessing...
I only got three seeds off the tree this year and in the picture is the seed & the other two, one just sprouted and the other is growing good.... Is there hybrids of buckeye trees or is it a chestnut? Thanks for looking any imput will help.





and this is the tree by the patio with the flowers on it.

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

I have a red flower buckeye--it is several yrs old --8-10, but only about 3ft--it has bloomed the last 2-3 yrs, but the blooms do not look like the one in the picture.

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

Those are buckeyes. I don't know much about them except that you are supposed to eat them and Van Gogh has a nice painting of one. In England they will usually call them chestnuts while the eating kind they call sweet chestnuts. For some photos of what here in the U.S. are "real" chestnuts, you can visit my site at Correia Chestnut Farm - American Grown Fresh Chestnuts From Our Family Farm to You; large hand-harvested Colossal chestnuts, recipes, instructions for roasting chestnuts, chestnut roasters, chestnut knives.

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

The nut is a glossy brown color and very smooth. The nuts are contained in a spiny hull until they ripen in September. The hull opens and they fall to the ground. Many times there are multiple nuts in a hull.

The nuts are slightly poisonous and shouldn't be eaten unless they are heated and leached

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

That seed looks like a buckeye seed to me, but the plant does not.

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

I'll admit to me having some confusion between buckeyes and horse chestnuts. I think they're the same but then I've been thinking lately that there are different types of buckeyes. This seems to be confirmed by this Wikipedia entry (don't have time to read it in detail now). Aesculus hippocastanum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

Thanks everyone, I found it I think...

Aesculus × carnea is a hybrid between the Red Buckeye (A. pavia) and the Common Horse-chestnut (A. hippocastanum). The origin of the tree is not known, but it is probably a chance garden hybrid, appearing in Germany before 1820. The hybrid is a medium-size tree to 20-25 m tall, intermediate between the parent species in most respects, but inheriting the red flower color from A. pavia. It is a popular tree in large gardens and parks, most commonly the selected cultivar 'Briotii' (named in 1858 to honor Pierre Louis Briot, the nurseryman at Trianon-Versailles near Paris, France), which has 10-inch tall, deep rosy flowers and matures as a smaller tree. Other cultivars are 'O'Neil',which produce larger (10-12 inch), brighter red flowers, 'Fort McNair' (named from where is was selected), which has dark pink flowers with yellow throats and resists leaf scorch and leaf blotch, and 'Plantierensis', which has intense rose pink flowers with yellow throats and does not set fruit, which makes it less messy.

Well I got 3 seeds off it this year......

Cultivars:
'Briotti' (Ruby Horsechestnut) - A hybrid tree that bears
clusters of bright red flowers and has heat
resistant dark, green foliage.
'Fort McNair' - Flowers pink with a yellow throat.
'O'Neill's Red' - Red flowers

I'm guessing its a 'Fort Mcnair' Buckeye. So its kinda both a chestnut & a buckeye since its a hybrid. All I know is you should see the hummingbirds fight over this one.... I went through alot of pictures to find it...
Thanks everyone for the help....:woohoonaner:

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

For clarification purposes (here in the U.S., anyways), that should be horse chestnut. What we refer to as a chestnut here in the U.S. is in the Castenea genus.

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

Went to a few web sites and some call it a "Fort McNair Buckeye" & some call it a "Fort McNair horse chestnut" so who knows what it is, when it's a hybrid. but the seed looks more like a buckeye to me than a horse chestnut.. sorry for the typoo just got excited when I found something on the tree... thanks again

Re: Buckeye or chestnut need help...
 

kid in a candy store .... lol