Red and White Horse Chestnut

Red and White Horse Chestnut

On the edge of our front garden, just in front of the council owned ditch we have two Horse Chestnut Trees. They are both Red Horse Chestnut Trees and both, for some reason, have tree preservation orders on them.

Anyway I love the autumnal colours of the leaves and they remind my of my childhood romps on Christ Pieces in Cambridge where there where quite a few White ‘conker’ trees.

The conkers of our trees do not have spikes and in spring have red flowers. I decided to have a look at the difference on the web.

The White Horse Chestnut was introduced to Britain in 1616 from Albania and Greece. The Red Horse Chestnut is a hybrid between the Red Buckeye and Horse Chestnut. It was introduced to Britain from Germany before 1818. It has crumpled leaves, smaller and not as long lived. 

Sue found the white and red conkers and I collected the leaf from one of our trees.