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BUCKEYE

Aesculus spp.
Includes at least the following, which should give you some idea of the range of species and common names and the overlap. Not as bad as some woods, but not clearcut either. Living things are like that sometimes.

A. arguta (Texas buckeye)
A. californica (California buckeye)
A. flava (sweet buckeye, yellow buckeye)
A. glabra (fetid buckeye, Ohio buckeye, stinking buckeye, Texas buckeye)
A. octandra (sweet buckeye, yellow buckeye)
A. pavia (red buckeye)
A. sylvatica (painted buckeye)
A. turbinata (Japanese buckeye)

There are also Aesculus species that are listed as horse chestnut which MAY be considered as the same common wood, but I'm not clear about this.

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my sample:



both sides and both ends of a sample piece of spalted buckeye


end grain closeup of the piece directly above, and now you can make out the faint markings of growth rings


buckeye burl pic of a pair of matched planks that have been moistened for the pic; contributed by Todd Levy --- thanks Todd.

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web pics


planks


veneer listed as European horse chestnut


turning block and end grain


turning block


spalted plank


spalted turning block


burl turning blocks



burl turning sticks


burls --- I have no experience with the burl of this wood. Burls can be significantly different color than the wood of the non-burl part of a tree, but some of these burls certainly extreme. After seeing the preceeding statement, correspondant Daniel Klein commented to me that he has seen buckeye burl and it does indeed turn a blue-green color after being exposed to the air.


pen blanks made from buckeye burl