This tree is a Yellow Buckeye, Aesculus flava. Like all
buckeyes, it is a member of the Horsechestnut Family, the
Hippocastanaceae. The Yellow Buckeye is an Appalachian species
that grows in southern Ohio but not this far north so this tree was
planted here. It was started from a buckeye nut given to this
campus along with several others by OSU's legendary football coach
Woody Hayes. The seeds were planted elsewhere on campus and they
all grew! In the 1980's this one was moved to this
location. The others are in the woods across from the new OSU
administration building.
While the Yellow Buckeye is a native Ohio plant, it is not the official
tree of the State of Ohio. That is another species, the Ohio
Buckeye or Aesculus glabra.
Both of these species have palmately compound leaves with five (rarely
more) leaflets. But while the leaves of Ohio Buckeye are about
the size of a salad plate, the leaves of this Yellow Buckeye are as
large as a dinner plate! The flowers, too, are different.
Ohio Buckeye has yellow-green flowers with stamens that protrude from
the mouth of the petal tube. Yellow Buckeye has yellow flowers
and the stamens are hidden inside the tube of petals . Both
produce their nuts in a thick, leathery covering. That covering
has a smooth surface in the Yellow Buckeye but is covered with warty
bumps in the Ohio Buckeye.
Buckeye wood is very soft and easily carved, not splitting when it
dries. It is pale in color, almost white, and very light in
weight. It is used for wooden bowls and utensils and even for
artificial arms and legs. The poisonous nuts were ground and
added to library paste to keep insects from eating the book bindings.
-- David Kramer
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