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Contents:
Common Names
Parts Usually Used
Plant(s) & Culture
Where Found Legends, Myths and Stories
Uses
Warning
Bibliography
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Common Names
Buckeye
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Parts Usually Used
Nuts
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Description of Plant(s) and Culture
Buckeye (named from the appearance of the seed). Any of various trees (genus
Aesculus) of the horsechestnut family with large, spiny capsules enclosing shiny
brown seeds.
Small tree; 20-24 foot. The palmate leaves,
4-15 inches long, with 5 toothed leaflets (rarely 4-7), and the yellowish blooms
characterize this horsechestnut. Flowers in April to May. The nuts were once
used medicinally, but are considered poisonous without elaborate processing.
Twigs are foul-smelling when broken. Buds not sticky; scales at tips strongly
ridged. Bark rough-scaly.
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Where Found
A native of Ohio (called the Buckeye State). Found in rich, moist woods. West
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, east Tennessee, central Alabama, central Oklahoma
to Nebraska, Iowa.
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Legends, Myths and Stories
The buckeye is best known among superstitious people as an amulet for good-luck.
The seed is strung and worn as a necklace or simply carried about in pocket
or purse.
American Indians put ground nuts in streams to stupefy fish, which floated to the surface for easy harvest. They roasted buckeyes, peeled and mashed them, then leached them, with the result that the toxic principle was removed, leaving a nourishing meal.
Old sources say the nuts will remove mildew stains from linen and a flour made from buckeyes makes an insect-proof paste of great tenacity much preferred by bookbinders. It is also said that moonshiners used the nuts to give their "liker" an aged appearance.
Still, even though considered toxic, American
Indians made food from them after elaborate processing.
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Uses
Traditionally, powdered nut (minute doses) were used for spasmodic cough, asthma,
intestinal irritations. Externally, tea or ointment used for rheumatism and
piles.
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Warning
Nuts of the buckeye are toxic, causing severe gastric irritation. Should not
be taken internally unless under medical supervision.
