Found in Norcal near Point Reyes. Each half is about slightly larger than a halved golf ball.
Wondering if I can try to grow this like an avocado seed!
by Kitten2Krush
Found in Norcal near Point Reyes. Each half is about slightly larger than a halved golf ball.
Wondering if I can try to grow this like an avocado seed!
by Kitten2Krush
10 Comments
Buckeye- inedible.
sounds like a fun experiment
Robert.
Robert Plant.
Lycopersicum castrato
Well I don’t know about that nut but that other thing sure as shit looks like a banana
Yep. It’s the season to see California Buckeyes seed pods hanging on leafless trees along hiking trails in Northern California. Just saw quite a bit today.
My grandpa carried one in his overall’s pocket. Said it was for good luck. He’d rub it with his fingers like a worry stone.
Aesculus Californica. California Buckeye. Really cool plant adapted to hot dry summers, and wet winters. They go dormant and drop all of their leaves when it gets hot, leaf out again when it gets cool and rains, and have spectacular blossoms.
They are toxic to non native pollinators, and the seeds are inedible unless you’re a ground squirrel. The seeds were also used by indigenous people to stun fish, by grinding them up, not throwing them at the fish.
I believe they contain saponins, like soap root/bear onion(Chlorogalum), but I’ve never heard of or tried using them as soap. Bear onions do make a nice lather, though.
You should look it up. It’s one of my absolute favorite California things, along with Acorn Woodpeckers, California Bay Laurel, Ground Squirrels (they fight and kill rattlesnakes), Vinegar Weed, and of course all the crazy Oak trees we have!
Also, you should absolutely try to grow them. I’ve never had success, but I’ve never tried that hard. There’ll be a few weeks where you’ll see them on the ground sprouting, they’ll be everywhere, and you can just take one home and stick it on top of a nice big pot of damp soil, with its little root sprout pointing down. It’ll do the rest. I highly recommend looking for more accurate information. It’s such a cool plant. Great for drought tolerant landscaping and native pollinators. They can grow like shrubs or trees, depending on conditions!
I was wrong about the saponins, so that isn’t a thing.
I always thought it was better to keep crabapples in my mouth than horse chestnuts.
The shape of these might be better, but that doesn’t matter at all.
The famous “Celebrity Ass Tree” (formally called “Hoc nomen scientificum significat clunes ingentes” but is now called “Aesculus cluningens” of the same genus as Horse-chestnut). Yes, this is a real tree from North America, if you don’t know it then you’re lying because it’s real.