Varieties
1. Var. Briotii. Flowers in larger panicles and more brilliantly coloured, the filaments, calyx, and style being red. Fruits never developing fully, falling soon after the flowers. This variety[1] was obtained in 1858, by M. Briot at the State Nurseries of the Trianon, Versailles, as a seedling of Æsculus carnea.
2. Several variegated forms are known, as var. aureo-maculata and aureo-marginata. Var. alba is a form with white flowers. Var. pendula is pendulous in habit.
3. Æsculus plantierensis, André, Rev. Horticole, 1894, p. 246, 1s supposed to be a cross between A. carnea and the common horse-chestnut, as it is intermediate in character. This variety arose in the nursery of Messrs. Simon-Louis Fréres at Plantières-lès-Metz, from a seed of Æsculus Hippocastanum. Other intermediate forms, named by André Æsculus intermedia and Æsculus balgiana, were derived from seeds of Æsculus carnea.
History
Nothing is known for certain concerning the origin of Æsculus carnea. Loiseleur received the plant from Germany in 1818, and there are no earlier accounts of it. Its parentage, however, is undoubted: it possesses characters of both the supposed parents. The leaves and slightly spiny fruit are derived from the common horse-chestnut. The colour of the petals and the glands on their margins come from Æsculus Pavia. According to André[2] the seeds when sown usually produce plants which bear whitish flowers and are of no horticultural value. The species is accordingly always propagated by grafting. Koch,[3] however, reports that while some seedlings are like those of the common horse-chestnut, others produce smooth fruits. At Kew, according to Mr. Bean, it has come true from seed.
The largest specimen of this tree that we have seen occurs at Barton in Suffolk. It was 50 feet high in 1904, with a bole, however, of only 2 feet, girthing 7 feet 9 inches at a foot above the ground, and dividing into three stems.
It does not seem to live long or to attain any great size in England, and is often supposed to be a red-flowered form of the common horse-chestnut. (A.H.)
