Given its beauty, it is surprising that this tree is not more widely planted. A warming climate might favour this ebullient species. Introduced 1851.

Native to India (Assam), Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan. Never common, even where more frequent, for example in southern England.

Monoecious. Insect-pollinated. Gravity-dispersed.

Medium (26m), with straight ascending branches and a domed top. Trunk often substantial; bark smooth pink-grey, maturing rough, scaly and peeling. Twigs grey-brown; buds opposite, green-pink, sticky-resinous. Foliage flushes red, with no autumn colour. Leaves compound palmate with 5-9 short-stalked obovate-lanceolate leaflets (30cm), glossy dark green above, pale green below, serrate. Flowers in large upright panicles (30-40cm), pale pink with yellow bases turning crimson, June-July. Fruit a leathery, rough but unspiny capsule (5-8cm) with dark brown-black conkers. Horse Chestnut differs: stalkless leaflets, white-yellow-pink flowers a month earlier, spiky husks, glossy brown seeds.

Winter-hardy to -15°C but spring-frost-sensitive, so avoid frost hollows. Tolerant of many soils, including chalk, but prefers well-drained, moist (never waterlogged) ground. The cultivar 'Sydney Pearce' has particularly colourful blossom but limited distribution.

Flowers support pollinating insects, especially bees and hoverflies.

This species is relatively unaffected by Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner (see Horse Chestnut p. xxx).

Ornamental, perhaps gaining in popularity as interest sadly wanes in its close relative Horse Chestnut.