Back to latest Tree of the Month

The California buckeye, Aesculus californica,  is tree-sized but not necessarily tree-shaped; it makes a massive bush, starting from the ground on one trunk but soon spreading with many low branches into a dome up to 30 feet across. In June it becomes a mass of horse-chestnut flowers, more delicate than our common one, faintly pink with long stamens, hundreds of curving, aspiring spikes giving the tree the look of a commotion at a wedding.

It is one of the first trees to leaf, even as early as March, with leaves a dark metallic green that never seem to get frosted. They fall as early as late August, leaving the dense dome festooned with buff-coloured drupe-shaped conkers. I collected the seed in the Napa valley, north of San Francisco, where the buckeye is common, at vintage time and rushed home to plant it fresh. That was 30 years ago; since then I have had two generations of new trees.

Back to previous Tree of the Month