Youtor
Horse Chestnut Tree
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=og-gTe-9-20
Horse chestnut is a deciduous broadleaf tree native to the Balkan peninsula. • Scientific name: Aesculus hippocastanum • Interesting fact: the leaf stalks leave a scar on the twig when they fall, which resembles an inverted horse shoe with nail holes. This association with horses could explain why conkers used to be ground up and fed to horses to relieve them of coughs, and could be the origin of the tree's name. • Overview: mature horse chestnut trees grow to a height of around 40m, and can live for up to 300 years. The bark is smooth and pinky grey when young, which darkens and develops scaly plates with age. Twigs are hairless and stout, buds are oval, dark red, shiny and sticky. • Leaves: the palmate leaves comprise 5-7 pointed, toothed leaflets spreading from a central stem. • Flowers: appearing in May - individual flowers have 4-5 fringed petals, which are white with a pink flush at the base. • Fruits: once pollinated by insects, each flower develops into a glossy red-brown conker inside a spiky green husk, which falls in autumn. • The flowers provide a rich source of nectar and pollen to insects, particularly bees. Caterpillars of the triangle moth feed on its leaves, as well as the horse chestnut leaf miner moth, whose caterpillars provide food for blue tits. Deer and other mammals eat the conkers. • The most famous use of horse chestnut is in the game of conkers. The first record of the game is from the Isle of Wight in 1848. • Horse chestnut timber is a pale creamy white to light brown with a smooth, soft, fine texture. It's not very strong and is therefore not used commercially, but its soft texture makes it ideal for carving. • http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visit... • United States: • The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America (/əˈmɛrɪkə/), is a federal republic[16][17] composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 6] Forty-eight states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.[19] • At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km2)[20] and with over 324 million people, the United States is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area,[fn 7] and the third-most populous. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city is New York City; twelve other major metropolitan areas—each with at least 4.5 million inhabitants—are Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Riverside. • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...
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