But not without raising an inch-high, round buckeye welt that was kind of a trophy of a proper, active boyhood like a cherry tree fracture of arm or leg for the youth of another era. Don't let your boys stash a box of buckeyes away in their closets. They lose their luster quickly and rot easily, freeing a hoard of little flies that emerge from eggs laid on the nuts when young. It's a snap to tell edible chestnuts from poison buckeyes by examining the tree's leaves. Chestnut leaves, like beech, are borne singly on the branch, are about four inches long and refined looking with prominent parallel ribs and sharply toothed margins.
Buckeyes are useless except to small boys.