Chestnut - what ?? - Seven Sisters and more !!

In Horse terminology especially ‘Racing horses’ – have heard ‘Chestnut – mare/filly’ – and here is a Chestnut horse photo credit –teakauracing.com standing majestically. 

Chestnut is a hair coat color of horses consisting of a reddish-to-brown coat with a mane and tail the same or lighter in color than the coat. Chestnut is characterized by the absolute absence of true black hairs.  Chestnut is produced by a recessive gene. Unlike many coat colors, chestnut can be true-breeding;  that is, assuming they carry no recessive modifiers like pearl or mushroom, the mating between two chestnuts will produce chestnut offspring every time. 

Not a post on Horses but on a nut that I saw on a tree (as I struggled, a friend recollected that I took these photos in an IT park in OMR in Dec 2023, when we were there for an Insurance claims survey) – it did not look like fruit but more of unedible nuts. Chestnut or castaneous is a colour, a medium reddish shade of brown (displayed right), and is named after the nut of the chestnut tree.  

Northeast India,  is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political administrative division of the country. It comprises eight states—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura (commonly known as the "Seven Sisters"), and the "brother" state of Sikkim. The flora and fauna of these places are to be seen to be admired. 

Chestnut, (genus Castanea), genus of seven species of deciduous treesin the beech family (Fagaceae), native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The burlike fruits contain edible nuts and several species are cultivated as ornamental and timber trees.  The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus Castanea, in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. 

 

Google image search reveals these to be ‘Sterculia monosperma’, also known as Chinese chestnut, Thai chestnut, seven sisters' fruit, and phoenix eye fruit -  a deciduous tropical nut-bearing tree of genus Sterculia.  Its origin is southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan) and Taiwan, but it is now a common cultivated tree in northern Thailand, northern Vietnam, mountainous areas of Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as northern Laos and Shan State in Burma. 

Wikipedia  further states that the ripe nuts are edible. They may be eaten plain, roasted, boiled with water and salt or also may be used to prepare dishes.  In China these nuts are one of the traditional foods of the Qixi Festival, the 'night of the seven', also known as the 'anniversary of the seventh sister'. Qixi is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. 

The pods containing the nuts have a striking red color when ripe and the nuts are much darker —their husk or pericarpus is almost black— and smaller than the common chestnuts of genus Castanea. The pellicle is brown and smooth and the fruit is yellowish in color.

 

Interesting !
 
With regards – S Sampathkumar
6.6.2024