In early spring, when Appalachia’s floodplain and cove forests are brown and barren-looking, yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava) starts to leaf out, producing ornate, palmately-compound foliage with five leaflets that would look perfectly at home in a dense, Amazonian jungle. Long before the other trees in the forest have greened up, yellow buckeye has already added a splash of tropical lushness to an otherwise drab understory. Little wonder this grand denizen of Appalachia’s moist, cool forests is prized as an ornamental tree and has won the Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticulture Society. Under ideal growing conditions, yellow buckeye can reach a height of eighty or ninety feet. But you can’t truly appreciate the beauty of this tree until you’ve witnessed it bloom in early May, when it produces long panicles of creamy yellow-white, red-tinted flowers. The fruit that replaces the flower - a rough capsule containing a smooth and shiny brown seed - matures in the fall. The seeds are lovely to look at and hold in your hands but toxic to human beings if eaten in their raw form.