Suo Luo Zi

Aesculus chinensis Bunge (Chinese horse-chestnut) is a deciduous tree in the Sapindaceae (formerly Hippocastanaceae), 10-25 m tall, native to northern and central China and traditionally planted around temples and palaces. The trunk has greyish-brown, longitudinally fissured bark and bears a broadly rounded crown. Leaves are opposite, long-petiolate, and palmately compound with 5-7 oblanceolate to obovate leaflets 8-25 cm long, finely serrate at the margins, glabrous and dark green above and somewhat pubescent on the veins beneath. In late spring the tree produces showy upright terminal panicles 20-30 cm long of small whitish flowers with four spreading petals. The fruit is a thick-walled, smooth or warty pyriform capsule 4-6 cm across, splitting at maturity to release one to three large, glossy, chestnut-brown seeds with a pale broad scar ("eye").