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Aesculus pavia L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Aesculus pavia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/aesculus/aesculus-pavia/). Accessed 2024-10-12.

Common Names

  • Red Buckeye

Glossary

calyx
(pl. calyces) Outer whorl of the perianth. Composed of several sepals.
glandular
Bearing glands.
included
(botanical) Contained within another part or organ.
introgression
Incorporation of genes from one species into the genotype of another through repeated hybridisation or repetitive backcrossing between a hybrid and one of its parents.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
section
(sect.) Subdivision of a genus.
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Aesculus pavia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/aesculus/aesculus-pavia/). Accessed 2024-10-12.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia flowering at Thenford, UK. 19th May 2022. Image Tom Christian.

A shrub 8 to 12 ft or more high, with smooth branches and non-resinous buds. Leaves composed of five leaflets, which are 2 to 5 in. long, lanceolate, obovate or narrowly oblong, slightly downy beneath, especially in the vein-axils; irregularly, sharply, often doubly toothed. Flowers in panicles 3 to 6 in. long; each flower 11⁄2 in. long, with the four petals glandular at the margins, which scarcely expand at all; stamens about the length of the petals. Fruit smooth. Blossoms in early June.

Native of the southern United States; introduced, according to Aiton, in 1711. It is one of the rarest of the genus in gardens. The plants once met with under the name were usually forms of A. × hybrida, and even these are rarely seen today. It was usually grafted as a standard on some other species, when it formed a round-headed small tree, with its lower branches pendulous. But the plants at present cultivated at Kew do not show this character. The flowers of the red buckeye are richly coloured, but owing to the petals keeping closed, do not make so fine a display as they otherwise would.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

This species is figured in Bot. Mag., n.s., t.857. The plant at Kew from which the material was taken came from the Arnold Arboretum as A. splendens, now included in A. pavia.

A. discolor, mentioned under A. pavia as a close ally, is included in it by Hardin. The combined species ranges as far west as Texas, where the flowers are usually yellow. (More typically the flowers in A. pavia are bicoloured red and yellow at first, becoming wholly red as they age, or are red from the start.)

A. pavia is the type-species of the section Pavia, which is characterised by the long-clawed petals and the usually coloured calyx. The other species in this section are A. flava (octandra), A. glabra (including A. arguta as a variety), and A. sylvatica (A. neglecta auct., not Lindl.). The species in this section produce fertile hybrids where they meet in the wild, through which there is a ‘leakage’ (introgression) of genes from one parent to the other, and some of the variation within the species concerned is due to this factor.

Aesculus pavia

A very deep red flower form of Aesculus pavia grows at the Henry Botanic Garden near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 16 May 2019 Image Paul W. Meyer.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia growing at the Henry Botanic Garden, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This tree form is typical of cultivated plants grown in the open, and quite unlike the usual understorey shrubs seen in the wild (16 May, 2019) Image Paul W. Meyer.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia at the US National Botanical Garden, Washington DC. The relatively long, narrow corolla tube of this example is typical of more easterly wild populations (April 2009). Image John Grimshaw.

Aesculus pavia

More westerly populations of Aesculus pavia tend to have shorter, more campanulate corolla tubes. This species is pollinated by both hummingbirds and bees; most plants in this Texan population were flowering before the northward migration of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, although there was some variation in flowering/leaf emergence time (Palmetto State Park, Texas, USA – 28 February 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia leaves have 5 or 7 leaflets, glossy green and more or less glabrous above, with deeply impressed veins (wild plant, Brazos Bend State Park, Texas, USA – 27 February 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

Flower colour variation within a single wild population of Aesculus pavia. Yellow in the flower has sometimes been interpreted as the result of introgression from A. sylvatica and A. glabra, and is more common in the eastern part of the range. However a pure yellow flowered mutant found in this population around 1980 suggested a non-hybrid origin for var. flavescens found further west in Texas (Brazos Bend State Park, Texas, USA – 27 February 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia is typically an understorey shrub, leafing out and flowering before canopy trees are in full leaf (floodplain of lower Brazos River, Fort Bend Co., Texas, USA – 27 February 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

Aesculus pavia can flower while little more than a seedling, well under knee height in this example drawn from a wild population in which no individual was above 1 m tall was seen (Big Thicket National Preserve, Texas, USA – 26 February 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

At the far southwestern edge of its range on the Edwards Plateau of Central Texas, yellow flowered populations of otherwise typical western Aesculus pavia are known. They have been called var. flavescens; this cultivated plant is so-labelled and seems to fit the description (RHS Garden Rosemoor, UK – 28 May 2021). Image Julian Sutton.

Aesculus pavia

When grown on its own roots and beneath tree canopy Aesculus pavia can appear much as it does in the wild (Washington Park, Seattle, USA – 2 June 2022). Image Julian Sutton.

A discolor Pursh

This species is closely related to A. pavia but differs in the white down covering the leaf beneath. However, it is possible that the two species pass imperceptibly one into the other. The var. mollis (Raf.) Sarg. (A. austrina Small) is more representative of the species than is typical A. discolor, which has red and yellow flowers and is rare; in var. mollis, which is commoner in the wild, they are red.

'Atrosanguinea'

Flowers darker red than in the type. –

Aesculus pavia 'Atrosanguinea'

Aesculus pavia 'Atrosanguinea' (Yorkshire Arboretum, May 2020). Image John Grimshaw.

Aesculus pavia 'Atrosanguinea'

Early autumn colour on a group of Aesculus pavia Atrosanguinea (Yorkshire Arboretum, UK, September 2024). Image John Grimshaw.

'Humilis'

A low, or even prostrate shrub, flowers red, in small panicles. In commerce by 1826 and figured as A. humilis Lindl. in Bot. Reg., t. 1018. It is sometimes grafted as a standard or half-standard. Such, perhaps, were the trees once known as “Pavia pendula”.

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