Need help with ID of chestnut/buckeye

[Furby]

I have a tree just off the edge of my yard that I found to be an Ohio Buckeye this past summer. Now I'm pretty bad with tree ID's and my neighbor that actually owns it and is supposed to be a "master gardener", said it was a chestnut.
Anyways, it was marked to be cut down last spring because it's slightly under some power lines, and it looks to be in pretty poor shape. It was never cut because the crew didn't make it this far last spring.
The tree trimming crew moved back into the area today and I figure the tree will get cut the first of next week. I plan to take the log, but I would like to know what it really is. I've been digging around the net, and pulled up the past threads here, but have simply become more confused.
The husks were green, and I would find them with just one of the two nuts in them scattered about the yard. However, the pics I've seen of the Ohio Buckeye husks were a little different. I have these two nuts in the freezer. They came from the same husk, and I plan to plant them.



I can  get a pic of the trunk/bark on Sat., and maybe find a couple of old leaves.
Is there a tree that can be mistaken for the Buckeye? Or is there an easy way to tell the chestnuts apart?

[SwampDonkey]

American Chestnut leaves are beech-like, short stalked, and are narrowly oblong with teeth on the margins which are curved. Pubescent along the midrib vein. Fruit are short stalked burrs covered in stout spines and splits in 3-4 lines with two to three 1/2-3/4" long and broadly eggshaped and flattened and pointed nuts. The nuts are edible, similar to beechnuts.

As seen below the leaves of Ohio buckeye and horsechestnut are palmately compound (hand-like) and the two are in the same family.


Ohio Buckeye has 5-7 slightly stalked, slender leaflets as shown and are often pubescent (hairy) underneath. Unevenly sawtoothed leaflet margins. The fruit is a pale brown spiny capsule, splitting in 3 to three lines with 1-3 (1-2 inch long) large dark brown poisonous seeds. Injured leaves and twigs are astringent.



Horsechestnut has 7 obovate (broadest toward the tip), nonstalked leaflets (sometimes 5) as shown and are not pubescent underneath. Sawtoothed leaflet margins.

The fruit is a brown, warty or spiny, capsule that splits in 2-3 parts, it  has 1-2 large rounded shiny and brown (2 to 2-1/2 " diam) poisonous seeds.

cheers

[SwampDonkey]

Furby your seeds appear to be one of the buckeyes. ;)

[Roxie]

Furby...don't eat the seeds! :P

[Furby]

Sorry I didn't get these up on Sat., had a family emergency and was out all night.
Here are a couple pics of the trunk, and one of a branch.
I found some leaves, but none that would be worth a pic. However, they look the most like the pic SD posted of Horsechestnut, wider near the end and about 8" or longer.
The bigger seed in the pic is about 1 1/4" at the widest point.








Thanks Roxie, I didn't plan to. However after I thought I had ID the tree last summer and learned the seeds were poisonous, I found the squirrels were eating some of them.

[Corley5]

There's two horse chestnuts in my parents backyard that came from seedlings of a tree in front of my Greatx2 Grandparents farmhouse.  The original tree was cut down when the new owners decided they wanted a greenhouse and the tree blocked the sun :(.  The green house didn't last and is now a screen porch like the one that was there in the first place :  I always thought that a horse chestnut was a buckeye and a buckeye was a horse chestnut.  Guess not.  The ones at home have been producing a few nuts for few years now and have gotten quite big considering I remember them when they were only a couple feet tall.

[Furby]

According to a website I pulled up, the buckeye's range is South of me.



Greg,
      There are 13 species of buckeye (Aesculus), occurring in temperate North America, Europe, and Asia.  Six species are native to the United State.  Some are medium-large trees, but others, including the Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) of the southeastern United States, never become bigger than large shrubs.  All buckeyes have large palmately compound leaves.  In the spring they bear large cone-shaped clusters of flowers, which by midsummer give rise to greenish, leathery and often spiny fruits.  When mature, the fruits drop from the trees and split open, revealing the large dark brown seeds ("buckeyes") inside.

      Probably the most familiar other species of Buckeye is the one that is not even called a Buckeye -- the Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum).  It is also not a true chestnut (chestnuts belong to the genus Castanea in the oak family, Fagaceae).  It is often planted as a street tree and is native to Europe. 

Maybe I'm just chasing my tail on this one. :

[Corley5]

I'm not sure where these trees originated from.  The original was 32" DBH when it was cut twenty years ago and was about the same size as a sugar maple that is still there.  They were always referred to as horse chestnuts and from SDs pics yes that is what they are.  I'll have to ask mom if she knows where the original came from.  Someone tried to tell me once that they wouldn't produce viable seed this far :  Then I showed different ;D

[populus]

Furby -
Good pictures. The last picture, of the bud shining in the sun, is diagnostic - your tree is a horsechestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum.  All other buckeyes have dull, tan buds. Horsechestnut has shiny, sticky, resinous buds. So, it's a horsechestnut. 

[Furby]

Thanks for the help everyone!
Tree should be down in the morning as the crew stopped on the other side of my yard today.

Does anyone have any tips, tricks, or other info for planting these two seeds? I'd like to get at least one tree from them. They have been in the freezer for a couple of months, and I plan to leave them in a little longer.

[Jeff]

I would start them out in a containor, a five gallon pail maybe. My brother in law has started hundreds of walnuts and chestnuts that way. Gives them to family and friends. Good way to plant them until they are a foot tall or so, until you figure out where you want the tree.  Easer to monitor and take care of growing conditions too.

[Corley5]

I'd say starting in a bucket would be the best but the ones that we've got sprouted under the parent tree on their own and then were transplanted.  We got some chestmuts at work a while back and were instructed to heel them into mineral soil.  Never went back to see if any grew

[SwampDonkey]

Corley,

They grow horsechestnut in the capital city to the south of me. Some have gone wild along the river there and in the park edges. The univeristy has an old smasher of a horse chestnut on the lawn.

BTW, I was grouping horsechestnut as a buckeye, since they are the same genus. Your bud there does look like horsechestnut, as I remember it , as populus said.

[populus]

SwampDonkey is right - horsechestnut is Eurasian and buckeye is North American, but they are all in the genus Aesculus.

Horsechestnuts were very popular in the US soon after European settlement, and are very common in cities. The North American buckeyes never became popular as ornamentals. So in urban areas, it more common to see horsechestnuts than buckeyes. The famous "chestnut" of Wordsworth's poem "The Village Blacksmith" (under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands) was actually a horsechestnut! 

[Furby]

Thanks!
The 5gal. pail I can do, even have a couple with cracks in the bottom. ;)
Still need to get the log yard cleaned up, and all the dirt from the addition spread around. Growing them in a pail for a while will help a lot as I don't really have anyplace in the yard that is safe for planting in the near future. :