It does resemble Aesculus hippocastanum.

Yes to Horsechestnut (A. hippocastanum). What made you think it wasn’t?

Mainly because there's no nuts! Don't know much about these trees but wanted to know make sure I had a good ID.

Thank!

Its spring! The conkers, if there were any on such a youngster, will have fallen last autumn.

Thanks for introducing a new term (at least new to me), floral. Conkers sounds like something that I would have enjoyed as a kid. Wikipedia reviews the game, rules, etc.

floral...this tree has been growing there for 15 years...still no nuts! Sad!

Many trees need reach an age of appropriate maturity before they fruit. Horse chestnuts need to be about 20 years old before they flower and fruit.

The flowers are certainly a feature but unless you have a specific purpose for the nuts, most people would prefer their absence. You know they are not edible? A young vigorous tree is less likely to flower as is a tree growing in anything other than full sun.

I agree with gardengall48. Being quite familiar with Horsechestnuts I can say just from the looks of the one on the OP's pic that it is much too young to bear fruit.

Smivies...yeah, I wouldn't eat them! Actually they remind me of the midwest when I was a girl there and there were horse chestnuts everywhere. Now I live in Washington state; don't see them that much here.

The squirrels in my garden find the nuts hugely appealing :-) To the point where it is sometimes hazardous to walk, given the spiny shells/seed cases left everywhere. And the fact that I find horse chestnut seedlings in just about every container planting I own come springtime!

Who knows, one day it might look like this ....

Squirrels will hoard anything that is nut sized...I'm always finding half buried nut sized river stone in my lawn. They likely eat Aesculus nuts but it probably isn't a preferred food. Most people who proclaim themselves as gardeners would probably say that fewer squirrels are better than more.

The conkers are a highly preferred food for squirrels when they are ripe or close to it!! The activity in the large tree on my property in late summer/early fall is rather astonishing. One of the few species of wildlife that can eat horse chestnuts without toxicity concerns.

I have no issues with squirrels - compared to deer, rabbits or voles, they do very little damage in the garden. And I have no idea what kind of squirrels reside in Ontario, but here, squirrels are smart enough to the know the difference between a rock and something edible!!

Squirrels teeth keep growing so they file or sharpen them on stones , bones or other suitable material.

At a former property, I planted a nice row of Thuja as a screen from the neighbors. One squirrel chewed off all the upper branches on one side of one tree which left a huge, permanent gap. She was collecting material for a nest! I have photos of that damage.

Utility workers told me the squirrels in that area did more damage to lines and wires than did storms!

I resorted to using baby powder in planting holes to keep rodents from digging up plants, bulbs and whatever I had planted. As soon as they discovered disturbed areas, they would dig up everything! Where are the hawks when you need them?

does baby powder work?? hadn't heard that. Have tried many things to keep squirrels from digging up and eating my crocus!

"Squirrels teeth keep growing so they file or sharpen them on stones , bones or other suitable material."

And that includes hard shelled nuts - like horse chestnuts, acorns and walnuts - as well as tree bark and twigs. But I have seen no documentation to support that squirrels file down their teeth on rocks or that they hoard rocks like food!!

Horse chestnuts don't seem hard shelled to me. Instead more like chestnuts, with a sort of skin.

Jacobson, Trees of Seattle - Second Edition (2006) says of common horse chestnut

In Seattle it is very common, well known and naturalizing

Consistent with this I have seen wild ones popping up many times in this area. Local boulevards, campuses and parks have planted examples as much as 85 ft. tall, with trunks sometimes 4-5 ft. thick.

Next time I see one leave chestnut to acorn sized river stone in the lawn, I'll try and get a video. While they may be smart/resourceful rodents, they are also driven by instincts that one could anthropomorphize to OCD. So...in the absence of nuts, still going through the behaviours with a substitute to meet an instinctual need. Ditto with the highly repetitious digging which disturbs the soil which illicits more digging.

The eastern gray squirrel densities in my urban area are very high with a lot of their diet coming from discarded food (eg. late night University take-out).

As long as you get the beautiful flowers I wouldn't care about any conkers unless you want to make more trees.

An odd thing is the way they drop forcefully from the tree as though being thrown.