Red Buckeye

Description

Botanical Name:  Aesculus pavia

Common Name:  Red Buckeye, Scarlet Buckeye, Firecracker Plant

Description:  Beautiful Florida native shrub or small tree that blooms large red clusters of flowers in late winter through spring.

Red buckeye is a deciduous understory shrub or small tree. It is one of the first of the red tubular flowering plants to bloom each year, and is an important food source for returning hummingbirds and butterflies. It occurs naturally in moist and calcareous hammocks, slope forests, and upland hardwood forests. It is fast growing and usually blooms at a young age.

Red buckeye’s maroon to red, 1′ long, tubular flowers are born in showy, terminal clusters on red pedicels. Leaves are palmately compound with long leaf stalks. They are oppositely arranged. Leaflets are elliptic to obovate with finely serrated margins. The tree or shrub has an open, rounded crown. Its fruit, which appears in the fall, is a large, brown capsule that splits to reveal one to several seeds that look like chestnuts.

Likes part sun to part shade, especially protection from the hot afternoon sun, which makes this a great understory tree. Typically grows 10-15′ tall and wide but older specimens in perfect conditions can grow taller’. Likes moist, well drained soils. This plant is unusual in that it usually drops its leaves in late summer instead of late fall/winter. So it does better planted amongst other plants instead of as a specimen plant.  Moderate deer resistance. Attracts hummingbirds, of course, and squirrels like to eat the nuts. The seeds and young shoots are poisonous if eaten, so this one can be added to your Poison Garden!

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. Low/no tolerance of salty wind or direct salt spray.

This plant in 1-gallon containers is 8-15″ tall.

This plant in 3-gallon containers is 1.5 – 3′ tall.

This plant in 7-gallon containers is 3-5′ tall.

Plant Lore:  Native Americans crushed the seeds and young twigs and put them in water to stupefy fish for easier capture. Soap may be made from the roots and a black dye from the wood. The bark can be medicinal.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 9