Francene - Views on news
  • BLOG
  • About
  • Contact

 Horseplay with conkers.

10/12/2015

8 Comments

 
PictureHorse chestnut leaf and flower - en.wikipedia.org
 I've always been envious of people who can gaze at bright autumn colours on the trees nearby in countries like Canada and the USA. You see, the only trees I can see for miles around are horse chestnuts.

The giant trees tower above our street and fill the view from our front windows. In the full flush of spring, lovely conical flower bracts appear among the bright leaves. Petals fall on the path like confetti. Apart from absorbing dust in the air and exhaust fumes, the trees shelter us from summer heat, and shield the late rays of the sun, keeping our home cool.

At the moment, the distinctive palmate leaves are giving a better display of golden, russet, and brown than they have for years. They have only just begun to fall. In previous years, disease has shortened the life of their leaves, sometimes falling as early as June—far too soon. This was due to the leaf miner moth, which made the leaves turn brown, crumble and fall off.

Horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) were introduced into Britain from Turkey in the late 16th Century, rapidly becoming naturalised in the UK. They are now a common sight in many landscaped parks, gardens, streets and village greens.

A national inventory estimated there to be approximately half a million horse chestnut trees in Great Britain, whether they all live up to their potential height of 30 metres and 300 years old is currently difficult to predict. Ours are over a hundred years old.

Pictureconker - en.wikipedia.org
 Soon, the conkers will fall. On a previous year. one even hit me on the head as I walked underneath.

Conkers are the hard mahogany-brown seeds that sit inside a protective casing, which drop to the ground in autumn. Children come with their parents from miles around to gather their chosen ammunition, ready to wage war on the schoolyard battlefield in a game of conkers.

Many adult combatants competed with their prize conkers on the 11th October at the World Conker Championships in Southwick, Northamptonshire. The annual contest has been held since 1965. Some 200 entrants from 10 countries, including Japan, South Africa and the US, battled it out. The third-time winner was a man from West Sussex, who beat a woman from London.

The tradition goes back, with the first recorded game of conkers believed to have taken place on the Isle of Wight in 1848. Originally it was played with snail (conch) shells and then cobnuts, eventually being replaced with horse chestnut seeds by the 20th century.

If you don’t know the rules, they are quite simple. The conker is threaded onto a lace, with each player taking turns to strike the others until one gets smashed or destroyed.

However, the seeds of a horse chestnut tree have a more serious side. Conkers can be mildly poisonous to many animals, causing sickness if eaten, although some animals can safely consume them, most notably deer and wild boar.

Like the name implies, conkers have been fed to poor horses as a stimulant, to make their coat shine and as a remedy for coughs, and also made into food for both horses and cattle.

Conkers are very rich in starch, but, due to their toxicity are unfit for human consumption, although they are used in extracts in shampoos and body washes. Source: BBC.

Have you ever played the game of conkers?

8 Comments
Suzy link
10/12/2015 02:35:51 am

I've never heard of conkers. I visited New York in the fall some years ago and the colours were just beautiful.

Reply
Alana link
10/12/2015 03:24:03 am

I didn't play conkers. My husband did - a lot - but they never called it "conkers", they just called it "horse chestnut fighting" and it had elaborate rules. I'll have to see if it is the same rules of conkers. We have plenty of horse chestnuts where I live near Binghamton, New York - they have such beautiful flowers in late spring, as you point out.

Reply
Dannii @ Hungry Healthy Happy link
10/12/2015 04:08:51 am

I used to love playing conkers when I was a kid. I haven't done it in years.

Reply
Roy A Ackerman, PhD, EA link
10/12/2015 04:51:20 am

Hmm. Perhaps we should consider that those who play that game with conkers are simply bonkers...

Reply
Leanne link
10/12/2015 05:22:49 am

I've never seen a real conker but I've heard of them - now I'm thinking I should eat a paste of them if they make my hair shiny, stop coughs and are a stimulant (just kidding!) thanks for the education on these!

Reply
Kathy29156 link
10/12/2015 07:31:36 am

I can honestly say I have never played conkers. Interesting read. I would be willing to give it a go!

Reply
Corinne Rodrigues link
10/12/2015 09:13:56 am

I've read about people playing conkers but had no clue about what they looked like!
The way we treat animals is awful!

Reply
Barbara Bianchi link
10/13/2015 10:04:18 am

We have conkers in our neighborhood. My kids enjoyed picking them up and sketching pictures of them into their nature notebooks when they were younger. Ha ha We didn't know about the game. :)

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Francene Stanley
    From England, I use news items in my novels which you can see below, all linked to an Amazon near you.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    Categories
    news
    earth
    sea
    space
    environment
    people
    animals
    fish
    birds 

    experience 
    writing
    novels

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.