What is Horse Chestnut used for?
Traditional/Ethnobotanical uses Because of their prevalence, chestnuts have been used in traditional medicine and for a variety of other commercial applications for centuries. Extracts of the bark have been used as a yellow dye, and the wood has been used for furniture and packing cases. In the western US, the crushed unripe seeds of the California buckeye were scattered into streams to stupefy fish, and leaves were steeped as a tea to remedy congestion. Though the seeds are toxic, several traditional methods were employed to rid them of their toxicity. Seeds were buried in swampy, cold ground during the winter to free them of toxic bitter components, then eaten in the spring after boiling. Indians roasted, peeled, and mashed the poisonous nuts, then leached the meal in lime water for several days, creating a meal used to make breads. Sweet chestnuts, used as food, are of a different genus (Castanez) than the horse chestnuts or buckeyes of traditional medicine. The horse chestnut has b
