12th April: Horse Chestnut

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, today celebrated the Horse Chestnut, aka the conker tree. Here are some facts you may not have known about horse chestnut trees and conkers:

1. The Latin name for the common horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum. Linnaeus named the genus Aesculus after the Roman name for an edible acorn.
2. Not that the seeds of the tree are edible. They're toxic to people and some animals. Native Americans used to crush the seeds and throw them into water to stun or kill fish. They would then boil and drain the fish at least three times in order to dilute the toxin's effects. New shoots from the seeds have been known to kill grazing cattle.
3. That said, deer and wild boar eat them without ill effects, and in olden days, they were ground up and used as remedies for horses. This is possibly the origin of the common name for the tree - Horse chestnut.
4. Alternatively, the name could come from the fact that, when the leaves fall off in autumn they leave a scar on the stem, which looks like a Horseshoe, complete with nails.
5. The horse chestnut was first introduced to the UK from Turkey in the late 16th century.
6. The seeds from this tree are often referred to as "conkers" after the children's game in which conkers are threaded onto string and used to hit an opponent's conker until one of them breaks. The word conker may come from the verb, to conquer, or conk, to knock out.
7. The game of conkers wasn't always played with horse chestnuts. The first mention of the game is in Robert Southey's memoirs published in 1821 - this game was played with Snail shells or Hazelnuts, however. The first recorded game of Conkers using Horse Chestnuts was on the Isle of Wight in 1848.
8. A new conker is a none-er meaning that it has conquered none yet. If a none-er breaks another none-er then it becomes a one-er, if it was a one-er then it becomes a two-er, and so on. 2001 Eamonn Dooley from Freshford in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland had a 306-er (at least) after he broke a record breaking 306 conkers in one hour.
9. Horse chestnut trees grow to a height of around 40m, and can live for up to 300 years. They have distinctive leaves, with five or more long leaflets, clusters of flowers resembling candelabra, and in winter, the twigs have large red-brown buds covered in sticky sap, which protects them from damage from frost and insects.
10. Other uses of the conkers include additives in shampoos and starch substitutes. Chemicals extracted from conkers can be used to treat strains and bruises.