Arnold Buckeye Seeds

Arnold buckeye represents a natural seedling hybrid of yellow and red buckeye found in the Arnold Arboretum. Trees are generally small, compact and sometimes columnar or pyramidal in shape. When I first found about this hybrid, I knew of the varieties from it, but was unaware if you could grow it from seed to create a hybrid swarm type of population where the seedlings would 'even out' over time. That did work. In my nursery, buckeyes were not popular plants. As a result I quit growing them. However, over time the trees I planted out back took on a life of their own as they slowly became shaded with the black walnuts I planted. This did not matter and to this day the trees are crowded by pawpaw on one side and black walnuts on the other. The buckeyes keep on flowering and fruiting and have a nice form to them even in light shade. 

The spotted yellow and red flowers are distinct and beautiful often showing up early in the spring. The conkers or nuts are small and dark brown. Really quite beautiful on their own. Its hard to resist not picking them up. They ripen early in August. 

This is a good tree for mixed plantings and could easily be used for windbreaks, urban trees under power lines, ornamental tree for your front lawn as well as locations where trees are difficult or impossible to establish. Arnold buckeye like other buckeyes have an amazing root system with plenty of root hairs. As a result it doesn't need a lot of soil to survive. This hybrid is not fast growing though but does begin flowering in 4-8 years from seed when the trees are only 3-5 ft. tall even from seed. Selections could easily be done with this hybrid but I am going with the seed approach as the plants are uniform to produce this way. Further grow outs to create a stabilized species would be very easy. 

Varietal:  "Conker-o-Plenty"  Selected seedling with the most vigor, dense flowering and nut production. The pyramidal small tree with a central leader makes it an ideal street tree as well as a means to create a greater hybrid swarm for a seedling strain. Worth establishing just for the conkers. Foliage stays on through the summer with little or no anthracnose.  For a small tree, the nut production is incredibly high with this selection partly because of the dense branching and heavy flowering.