“Bottlebrush Buckeye” [Filler]

Taken yesterday at the Rutherford B. Hayes estate at Spiegel Grove in Fremont, Ohio.

An earlier shot of the same clump of shrubs, before the flowers opened, http://phytoimages.siu.edu/imgs/paraman1/r/Hippocastanaceae_Aesculus_parviflora_100520.html

From Missouri Botanical Garden, http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=b180 » “Aesculus parviflora, commonly called bottlebrush buckeye, is noted for being one of the best summer-flowering shrubs for shade areas. It is a dense, mounded, suckering, deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub which typically grows 6-12' tall. Features palmate green leaves (5-7 leaflets) and erect, showy, cylindrical panicles (to 12" long) of tubular white flowers with conspicuous red anthers and pinkish filaments. Mid-summer bloom can be spectacular. Flowers give way to glossy inedible, pear-shaped nuts (buckeyes) encased in husks, however these nuts are infrequently produced in cultivation in the northern parts of this shrub's growing range… Foliage turns yellow in autumn.

“Genus name is the Latin name for a kind of oak bearing edible acorns but applied by Linnaeus to this genus.

“Specific epithet means small flowers.”

Species page at PhytoImages, http://phytoimages.siu.edu/cgi-bin/dol/dol_terminal.pl?taxon_name=Aesculus_parviflora&rank=binomial

[ IMG_1998S8x12tm :: f/5.6 :: 1/400" :: ISO-400 :: 51mm ]

[Jane Anderson]

I've never seen this before, and it is so interesting--it's like a combination of several other plants that I am familiar with.

[Danette Thompson]

Very pretty. We only have red ones.