These sweet chestnuts were falling quite frequently inside the Lemur enclosure at the West Midland Safari Park.
The Lemurs were enjoying them as a snack in today's sunshine (which has been pretty sparse this last week!) and I've never realised just how sharp the spikes protecting them were!
Castanea sativa is a species of flowering plant in the family Fagaceae, native to Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived deciduous tree, it produces an edible seed, the chestnut, which has been used in cooking since ancient times.
The tree is commonly called the "chestnut", or "sweet chestnut" to distinguish it from the horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum, to which it is only distantly related. Other common names include "Spanish chestnut", "Portuguese chestnut" and "marron" (French for "chestnut"). The Latin sativa means "cultivated by humans".
C. sativa attains a height of 20–35 m (66–115 ft) with a trunk often 2 m (7 ft) in diameter. The bark often has a net-shaped (retiform) pattern with deep furrows or fissures running spirally in both directions up the trunk. The oblong-lanceolate, boldly toothed leaves are 16–28 cm (6–11 in) long and 5–9 cm (2–4 in) broad.
The flowers of both sexes are borne in 10–20 cm (4–8 in) long, upright catkins, the male flowers in the upper part and female flowers in the lower part. In the northern hemisphere, they appear in late June to July, and by autumn, the female flowers develop into spiny cupules containing 3-7 brownish nuts that are shed during October. The female flowers eventually form a spiky sheath that deters predators from the seed. Some cultivars ('Marron de Lyon', 'Paragon' and some hybrids) produce only one large nut per cupule, rather than the usual two to four nuts of edible, though smaller, size.
Wow! So I have been wondering what conkers are...nuts? Is this the outer covering? So interesting and quite lovely...but they do look like they would be a painful to pick up. Wouldn't want one falling on my head. Great capture and detail!!
@eyesmile Thanks Gena, these are actually sweet-chestnuts which has been kindly pointed out to me. The spikes were very sharp with the chestnuts located inside. The Lemurs were loving them as a snack!
A beautiful sharp close-up. I used to love collecting sweet chestnuts as a child, but they were always so difficult to get into - those prickly shells were quite hard on the fingers, and then if you ate them raw, it was hard to get off the brown skins too!