History of Rare Plants

Aesculus hippocastanum
L. sp. pl. 488
Linn. 3. 712
H. cup. 1478

Detailed botanical illustration of a Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) branch, featuring its characteristic large palmate leaves with seven leaflets, serrated margins, and a terminal bud.

Illustrations of the Horse Chestnut's spiny green husks (calyx) and the dark, glossy, rounded seeds (conkers) within, shown from multiple perspectives.

Rhizobolus butyrosus. Sant. spr. hist.

Detailed illustrations of the fruit and seeds of a tropical species labeled "Peruvian Chestnut" (likely Caryocar nuciferum). The drawings show the outer fruit structure and various angles of the curved, kidney-shaped seeds found inside.

unfold themselves, which are palmate, and for the most part seven in number, attached to one and the same petiole; delicate at first and endowed with a paler greenness, then veiny, wrinkled, long, gradually increasing in breadth from the lowest part, and notched along the edges, with a pointed tip, green above, whitish below, with a somewhat bitter taste: the petioles to which they are attached are oblong, always in pairs in an equal position, yet opposite, clasping the branches alternately: the young branches are green, the mature ones are covered with an ash-colored bark, beneath which lies another succulent, green layer surrounding the wood, as in the Elder or the broad-leaved Maple, to which the wood of this tree (as much as I have been able to discern from the single one I have cultivated) is very similar. Its flower and fresh fruit have not yet been seen by me, although mine grew to such size, as I have said, that I hoped it would produce flowers; but neither was I able to obtain them, though often requested, from friends who were in Constantinople with the Imperial Legates. Indeed, the dried fruit was brought from there several times, completely bare and removed from its husk; finally, it was shared with its spiny husk by the most learned man Christophorus Wexius, upon his return in the year 1587 from his travels in Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Byzantium. It is indeed equal to the common chestnut, sometimes even larger, not ending in a point like that one, but flatter and somewhat orbicular in shape, with a certain tubercle protruding from the upper part, which, gradually narrowing, extends even to the downward part, embracing the germ (which has its origin there): it is covered with a leathery skin like the common one, which is chestnut-colored on the upper part, but on the lowest part, where it adheres to its spiny husk, it is whitish, and has almost a similar mark impressed on it as is seen in the seed of the creeping or foreign heart-pea, but much larger and not so white: this skin is unique, nor does it hide another tunic or down within it, as our own chestnuts do: it consists of firm and solid flesh, white like the common ones, yet not of such pleasant taste, but rather bitterish, especially when older and dry, such as I have tasted: they are for the most part enclosed singly, sometimes in pairs, in the same husk, bristling with many short and firm spines, which, gaping open into three parts at maturity, shows the nut adhering to its side at the lowest part, not by a stalk like other nuts.

At ceestanesi.
Ad castanesi.
Chastaigne de cheval.
Ross kesten
Castagna di cauallo.
Castania de cauallo.

I judge that this tree was unknown to the ANCIENTS, since I remember reading no history described by them which is found to correspond to this tree. The Turks distinguish it by the name at ceestanesi or ad castanesi, that is, Horse Chestnut, because they find that its fruit, when eaten, brings much aid to horses that are short of breath and coughing. By the French it may be called Chastaigne de cheval, by the Germans Ross kesten; by the Italians Castagna di cavallo, by the Spaniards Castania de cauallo.

Here I cannot fail to add an elegant kind of chestnut [sent] to me by the most learned man, and the same Cosmo-