Buckeyes? I don't know why I thought they only grew in Ohio. lol

They look similar to the Buckeyes we have here in Missouri. The texture, color and size of the pods are very like ours, but the shape is more oval and elongated - ours are rounder. And the way the pod hangs on the stem is just like ours.

I just picked some the other day and squeezed them open to take out the actual buckeyes. They were fat and shiny.

So are they buckeyes?

Are buckeyes edible?

I wouldn't eat one, raw buckeyes are toxic to humans. Those look like chestnut pods to me. I think that in the Virginia area chestnut trees die young from blight according to information from one of the national parks there.

We have Chinese Chestnuts and the pods are very, very spiny. Are there other chestnuts that aren't?

They're buckeyes, one of our native horsechestnuts.

Chestnuts are Castanea, horsechestnuts are Aescules.

The fruits of buckeyes are considered to be inedible.

Thanks, everyone! I never knew what buckeyes were. Now I know--and so does the friend who asked about it.

Definitely a buckeye. Mine get ratty looking like that in summer, but leaf out early in spring and produce spires of red flowers. It is common for them to look like that. I don't give mine a lot of supplemental water, which might help them hold their leaves better, but they are an understory tree and the big trees around them probably suck up available moisture.

I was going to say definitely not a buckeye, since I'm from Ohio, and attended Ohio State. I know that the casing around the nut is covered with short sharp spikes as shown here:

However I would have been wrong. According to the googles, the above is an Ohio Buckeye (Aesculus glabra) whereas the following is a picture of a Yellow Buckeye (Aesculus flava) which looks very much like your picture above.

We also have a couple of mature Chestnut trees on our property (almost certainly Chinese Chestnut trees) and as ldstarr says the hulls are very very spikey.

Interesting that there are yellow flowered ones, as well as the ones like I have that produce red flowers. Now I need to find a yellow flowered one.

My grandmother always warned us that half of each buckeye is poisonous, but said that only the squirrels know which half it is. I've since read that the whole nut contains the same toxin, but the squirrels know how much of the toxin they can safely consume, leaving a lot of half-eaten nuts.

I have a huge horse chestnut tree in my inherited garden and right now the squirrels are finding it irresistible!! My walkway is littered with the spiky halves of the husks and needs to be swept daily to avoid tripping hazards.

I have yet to see any half eaten nuts. You can see where they have opened and eaten them here and there, leaving some crumbs but no large chunks. And I know they take them for winter storage as I often discovered buried buckeyes/conkers in my container plantings and beds. According to most sources, the toxic substance, aesculin, has little to no effect on squirrels and deer but can be mildly toxic to other mammals.

I recall stories that Native Americans would crush buckeyes and cast the pieces on the surface of a lake. The toxins in the buckeyes would stun nearby fish causing them to float to the surface and the Native Americans would gather all they wanted and those that they didn't take would recover and swim off.

I have no idea whether there is any truth to this story.