This widely cultivated tree--the southeast European "horse-chestnut"--has not become truly naturalized in eastern North America. But self-seedlings do rarely appear, as in a coll. from CAMP (NCU, KNK). The chemistry of this species, especially the seeds, has been studied in detail, with special attention to the toxic polyhydroxylated triterpenoid saponins known as "aescin", and the coumarin glycoside known as "aesculin" (e.g. Sirtori 2001). Although potentially fatal to vertebrates in large doses, extracts of seeds have had diverse uses in traditional medicine, and some recent research has supported the potential for various anti-inflammatory purposes. SImilar chemistry exists in other species of the genus, but with much phylogenetic variation in exact composition (Zhang et al. 2010, Yuan et al. 2011).