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Chestnut horse is an ordinary attribute of many cities, decorating park alleys, squares, boulevards, backyards, streets and gardens. Fifteen representatives of the genus horse chestnut can be found in North America, China, Europe and Japan. In Kiev horse chestnuts are trees that appeared in the first half of the XIX century. They became the "calling card" of the Ukrainian capital, and the image of leaf and inflorescence turned into a natural symbol of the city. Deciduous tree has taken root in the European part of Russia, where the climate differs significantly from the mild climatic conditions of Southern Europe - the native land of the plant. In the Balkan Peninsula, where horse chestnuts are still found in the wild, trees are called relict trees, since they have been the inhabitants of the local mountain forests since ancient times. To date, chestnuts wherever there are appropriate conditions for their growth, are the favorites of park design.
Description
Chestnut tree (photo presented in the article) is decorative. It is always attractive, especially in a warm season, when its wide crown is covered with a bizarre mosaic of large leaves, consisting of five to seven fan-shaped leaves. In May, at a time of profuse flowering, chestnuts are trees that fascinate the incredible beauty of whites with a pink tinge of bell-shaped flowers. Inflorescences of the pyramidal form (erect brushes) resemble candles that have flared among the dark green foliage. Later on, large fruit ripens on the branches - brown seeds with a white scar at the base, hidden in tricuspid capsules with spines. In August and September the horse chestnut tree surprises again. The capsules are opened, and the brilliant seeds, polished like seeds, called simply chestnuts or horse chestnuts in ordinary speech, fall to the ground. There is an opinion that the chestnut is given the name "horse" for the color of the rind of fruit, reminiscent of the skin of a horse with a bay suede.
Application
The fruits of horse chestnut, in contrast to the nuts of chestnut seed, are inedible, but are a valuable raw material for the production of medicines. In pharmaceutics, flowers and bark are also used. Medicines from this plant - tablets, ointments, drops, capsules, suppositories - are used to treat common vascular diseases in our time. Traditional medicine uses chestnut-based remedies for the treatment of veins on the legs and hemorrhoids. Healers recommend the use of externally alcohol tincture of horse chestnut flowers for the removal of arthritic and rheumatic pain. Wood horse chestnut has no commercial value, but is of value to woodcarvers. The plant is a honeycomb. Horse chestnuts - trees with domed crown, reaching a high altitude, interesting in all seasons. That is why they are of great value for the greening of cities. In addition, according to environmentalists, the trees of this species excellently purify the air in cities from exhaust gases. According to scientists, one tree can clean up to 20 thousand cubic meters of gassed air.