- In front yard of 130 Dunn Avenue
- Photo: © Liz Forsberg
The rounded outline of the canopy helps to identify this tree as an Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra). Although common to the midwestern United States, this member of the horsechestnut family has a limited range in Ontario. The only native population known is in a natural forest on Walpole Island in the north end of Lake St. Clair in southwestern Ontario.
The Native people of Ohio called the fruit “hetuck” meaning “eye of a buck” which the husked seed resembles. They made a powder out of the nut and added it to small naturally-occuring pools in rivers. A compound in the nut would stun the fish, causing them to rise to the surface where they could be caught more easily. Although it is believed that the nuts are poisonous, squirrels still eat them.
The Ohio Buckeye is a rare tree for the city but still seems to do well here. However, because it grows naturally on river bottoms, it is not particularly drought tolerant and it tends to lose its leaves early in the season.
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