Since it is far too depressing to write six blog posts in a row on the six main invasive species in Ruth Park Woods, I’m focusing this week on a species that caught my attention in a wonderful way this spring. I was up near the pavilion, waiting for my preschool families to arrive for a forest scavenger hunt that I designed for them, when I saw some brilliant splashes of red about six feet off the ground that weren’t cardinals. Looking out for poison ivy, as always, I worked my way through the undergrowth to discover a spike of red blooms. Gorgeous isn’t it?! These are the blossoms of a red buckeye (Aesculus pavia), a large shrub/small tree that, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, only grows in the wild in southeastern Missouri counties. As is the case with much of what grows in Ruth Park Woods, we don’t know if one was planted intentionally and others have grown from the seeds of that one, if there have been red buckeyes in Ruth Park Woods all along, or if the seeds of one planted on property near the Woods made their way into the Woods by natural forces. What we do know is that they are wonderful plants.
What purpose do they serve?
The umbrella-like leaves of red buckeyes offer habitat to birds and small animals. The flowers are an important food source for our native ruby-throated hummingbirds, especially since they bloom right at the time that the hummingbirds arrive in the St. Louis area from their migration north from southern Mexico and Central America. Note that the flowers are a hummingbird’s favorite shape (tubular) and color (red)!
Caution!
All parts of the red buckeye are poisonous to people and most animals if eaten. Touching them causes no problems, however.
Photo by Andrew Writer licensed under CC BY 2.0
Why are they called buckeyes?
The 1-3 seeds that are found in the seed pods are dark brown with a pale spot on them. Some people think that they look like a buck’s eye.
Fun Fact
Red buckeye roots were used to make a type of soap that early settlers used for washing clothing.
Kristin Soifer is a volunteer and summer intern with U City in Bloom’s Ruth Park Woods restoration project, and she is also a graduate student with Project Dragonfly at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and in conjunction with the Missouri Botanical Garden.
