Conkers! Big dreams for such a little twig

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It appeared on my windowsill at work late last spring, a treasure from a colleague.

Its leaves were wilting, so I added some dirt – yes, I have dirt on hand at work; you wouldn’t believe the situations that come my way – and a bit of water, but by the time it arrived home, it looked dead.

If this were a limp piece of lettuce or a faded nasturtium or such, I would have tossed it on the compost pile and called it a day.

But this was something else.

This was a horse chestnut.

Its ancestors had journeyed from Asia, Greece and the Balkans to arrive on England’s shores in the 1500s, then France in the 1600s and the New World in the 1700s. Granted, its ancestors likely grew from nuts carried forth from distant lands on long sea voyages, not from scrawny twigs.

But surely my little twig with the wilted leaves could survive a day trip from Castine to Hudson.

Being yanked out of a shady spot from whence it had sprouted in my friend’s garden undeniably was a shock to my little twig’s system.

Moving from the glistening shores of Castine Harbor to an inland plot where the only thing that glistens is the ice and snow for far too many months a year would be a bit of a downer, too.

I refused to believe that this was its end.

When we arrived home, I set my little twig on a table under the eaves on the north side of the house next to a potted begonia.

Then I waited.

I had wondered about horse chestnuts ever since I had heard Colin Firth utter the name in his role as Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice.” I, too, wanted to enjoy a horse chestnut season, whatever that meant. I knew next to nothing about them and made no attempt to find out more because I could just dream of Mr. Darcy and who needed another tree, anyway?

Not me, not until this past year, when a leaning poplar was taken down, creating a big hole in the canopy.

So when my friend asked if I would like a horse chestnut, what choice had I?

Days passed and the wilted leaves turned brown. After a couple of weeks, I noticed something peculiar. I couldn’t quite make out what was happening, but my kernel of hope was growing.

So, too, was my horse chestnut.

Somehow, someway, buds swelled and turned into two sets of leaves. Still, I kept the pot completely out of the sun with the hope that the root system would develop.

As the weeks passed, I placed it under the big umbrella so it got dappled sunlight for a while. It was August before I moved it to a sunnier spot, although still not in full sun.

I decided not to plant my twig until it went dormant for winter and then tucked it in a few feet from the stump of the old poplar. Its root system was impressive when it came out of the pot. I added a tall stick to the hole to mark the spot and a good-sized rock opposite it to discourage any mowing-happy relatives from approaching my horse chestnut.

That began the long journey to spring.

In the dismal days of January, I started to dig up information about this little twig on the hillside that I drive by every day.

Besides being an attractive ornamental with an early bloom time – a harbinger of spring, some writers say – horse chestnuts are prolific, it would seem, casting nuts about by way of wind and squirrel. If the conditions are right, they can be positively weedy.

Unlike the sweet chestnut of chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire fame, horse chestnuts can’t be consumed by humans. Well, they can, but eating the nuts would make a person rather ill. Horse chestnuts aren’t even related to sweet chestnuts. Instead, they belong to the buckeye family, a poisonous bunch from all accounts.

Legend has it that the Turks used the seeds as a remedy for horses with a cough, which was the impetus for the tree’s common name and also its Latin one, Aesculus hippocastanum.

Another legend has it that the markings on the tree were the cause for the name. The leaf scars look precisely like a horseshoe, even including the nail marks.

One Web site I found referred to an experiment during the Great War where a meal made of horse chestnuts was added to the feed for horses, cattle and pigs. It went over big with all but the pigs and was considered a viable food source for animals, making more grains available for human consumption.

For centuries, tinctures and potions have been made from the nuts, bark and leaves of the horse chestnut. Today, it is used in cosmetics (Clarins, for instance, touts its use in a number of its products, part of its “anti-pollution” complex). Several medical sites list a number of uses for extracts derived from horse chestnuts to treat problems related to the circulatory system. The compound found in horse chestnuts is aescin, which reduces inflammation and shores up vein walls.

If that weren’t enough, the nuts have long been used to play “conkers,” a game in England. According to the Royal Forestry Society of Great Britain, a hole is drilled through the middle of the nut or conker and a string is threaded through and knotted. The player then hits the conker against his opponent’s until one of the conkers breaks. Guess which player is the loser?

What a heavy burden rests on my little twig, sitting in the frozen landscape.

It needn’t worry. I’m not waiting to feed cattle, cure a coughing horse or develop a new face cream. I just want my little twig to survive this first winter. Then it can reach for the stars, grow straight and true, and branch out as the years pass. It will take a few seasons for it to hit 70 feet or so, but I can wait for that day.

Would it be too much to ask for a few nuts to play a round of conkers?

Just to while away the time, you know.

Janine Pineo’s e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.