Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is a tree familiar to nearly everyone, in spring it offers us its splendid showy blossoms as a spectacle of natures beauty. Orginally from South East Europe, the chestnut is now widespread throughout Europe, yet depsite its abundant presence, it is barely used. The characteristics of chestnut wood is similar to that of poplar or willow, it is light and quite soft, its colors range from cream-white, pale yellow to reddish and brownish hues. The grain is usually calm and straight, but sometimes it shows very attractive curly and flamed figure. Fungus may infect the tree and mostly produces highly decorative colour reactions from silvery blue-gray, warm reddish gray, to dark brown. However, the effects of fungi can also result in particularly interesting reactive discolorations, which can range from silvery blue-grey, dark brown to anthracite, often very decoratively delineated with fine, sharp black lines against non-stocked wood.
