Aesculus flava

Yellow buckeye

The Yellow Buckeye, also Appalachian Horse Chestnut or Yellow Pavie called (Aesculus flava, Aesculus often octandra ) is a North American representative of the horse chestnut (Aesculus ). It is the largest and most economically important forestry American Buckeye kind.

Features

The Yellow buckeye is a large, 20 to 30 m tall tree, reaching trunk diameter up to 1.5 m. The young bark is gray -brown, later gray, further roughened strongly furrowed and broken into large flakes plates, the surface through many small scales. The branches are first orange - brown, gray-brown later, smooth or gray - haired. The buds are blunt, the bud scales have a round back, are short acuminate and ciliate at the edge. The leaf scars are large with numerous Leitbündelnarben, which form a triangle.

The leaves are pinnate fingered and have 5-7 leaflets. The petiole is 8-19 cm long, glabrous to hairy. The leaflets are 10-21 cm long, 4-8 cm wide, obovate - oblong to elliptic- obovate. The blade end is pointed, the leaf base cuneate. The leaf margin serrate, more or less evenly. The top is dark green, glabrous or glabrous, the lower surface is dull, hairy bald with a few hairs on the nerves or tight. The sub-petioles are 2-3 mm long, glabrous to hairy.

The inflorescence is oblong, 10-15 cm long and pubescent. The flowers are pale to bright yellow, the nail deep, dark yellow, red brown to the changes during flowering. The flower stalk is 4-8 mm long, glandular, the glands to 2 mm long and black. The calyx is 7-10 mm long, campanulate to tubular and bell-shaped, glandular - pubescent on the surface, ragged at the edges. The longer glands of the peduncle often sit in the bottom third of the cup. The five sepals are rounded or truncated. The crown consists of four unequal petals, the nails are ragged and curled at the top, the panels are glandular - pubescent on the surface, ragged at the edges. The upper petals are 20-30 mm long, her nail 16 to 25 mm, the plate is small and spatulate. The lateral petals are 16-25 mm long, their nails 8 to 15 mm that is longer than the calyx, the plate obovate to rounded with a slightly heart-shaped base. 7 or 8 stamens are 15 to 20 mm long. The filaments are straight or bent, the lower half shaggy. The anthers are glabrous, glandular at the tip and base of the loculi. The stamp is equal to or longer than the lateral petals and hairy shaggy except for the scar.

The capsule fruit is approximately spherical and has a diameter of 5 to 8 cm. The pericarp is thin or thick, smooth or slightly pitted, and light brown in color. The fruit contains 1 to 3, rarely 4 to 6 seeds of chestnut brown color with large, pale scar.

Dissemination and locations

The distribution area of the Yellow buckeye ranges from southwestern Pennsylvania along the Ohio River to Illinois, the trees rarely grow more than a kilometer away from the river. The area includes south the Southeastern Ohio, West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, the Cumberland Mountains, the Plateau of Tennessee and northeast Alabama, the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, the Carolinas and northern Georgia. Fund reports from Texas and Iowa are based on false rules of Aesculus glabra Aesculus pavia and yellow forms of. The northern distribution limit on Ohoi River correlates strongly with the icing bound of the last ice ages. A recent climatic or caused by soil factors limit does not exist. The limit is likely to be caused by the Pleistocene glaciation, the species can not significantly move north. The distribution area is much smaller than that of Aesculus glabra Aesculus pavia or the nature nor does their great variability.

The species is a typical component of the mixed mesophytic societies ostamerikanischen deciduous forests. Frequently it is dominant, more frequently codominant with Tilia heterophylla, Liriodendron tulipifera, and Acer saccharum.

Use

The Yellow Buckeye Aesculus glabra is next to the only forestry- used species of the genus in America. The wood is used for the manufacture of furniture, boxes and tools.

Documents

• James W. Hardin: A revision of the American Hippocastanaceae II Brittonia, Volume 9, 1957, pp. 173-195.