YELLOW, OR SWEET BUCKEYE; BIG BUCKEYE (rEsculus octandra, Marsh). 50 to 80 feet. Large, handsome tree with pyramidal head of small, pendulous limbs, and orange-brown, smooth twigs, with large, blunt winter buds. Bark brown, dark, with shallow fissures and scaly plates. Wood light, soft, creamy white, close-grained, difficult to split, used for artificial limbs, woodenware, and pulp. Leaves of 5 to 7 elliptical or obovate, tapering, sharply serrate leaflets, 4 to 6 inches long, on the end of a petiole of equal length; dark yellow green above, dull beneath, turning yellow in autumn. Flow
ers showy, yellow, tubular, in dense, terminal, erect, pubescent clusters, 5 to 7 inches long, in early spring, with leaves. Fruit to 3 inches in diameter, globular, smooth, pitted, 3-valved husks, containing brown nut, sweet enough to be eaten by cattle. Dist.: Pennsylvania to Alabama; west to Iowa and Texas. Cultivated; especially a red-flowered form found on mountains from West Virginia southward.