These nuts are starchy, and contain so much potash, that they may be used when boiled for washing purposes. [103] In France and Switzerland they are employed for cleansing wool and bleaching linen, on account of their "saponin." Botanically, the Horse Chestnut is named _AEsculus hippocastanea_--the first word coming from _esca_, food; and the second from _hippos_, a horse; and _Castana_, the city, so called. The epithet "horse" does not imply any remedial use in diseases of that animal, but rather the size and coarseness of this species as compared with the Sweet Spanish Chestnut. In the same way we talk of the horse radish, the horse daisy, and the horse leech. In Turkey the fruit is given to horses touched or broken in the wind, but in this country horses will not eat it. Nevertheless, Horse Chestnuts may be used for fattening cattle, particularly sheep, the nuts being cut up, and mixed with oats, or beans. Their bitterness can be removed by first washing the Chestnuts in lime water. Medicinally, the ripe nut of this tree is employed, being collected in September or October, and deprived of its shell. The odour of the flowers is powerful and peculiar. No chemical analysis of them, or of the nuts, has been made, but they are found to contain tannin freely. Rich-coloured, of a reddish brown, and glossy, these nuts have given their name to a certain shade of mellow dark auburn hair. Rosalind, in _As You Like It_, says "Orlando's locks are of a good colour: I' faith your Chestnut was ever the only colour." Of the Horse Chestnut tincture, two or three drops, with a spoonful of water, taken before meals and at bedtime, will cure almost any simple case of piles in a week. Also, carrying a Horse Chestnut about the person, is said to obviate giddiness, and to prevent piles. Taken altogether, the Horse Chestnut, for its splendour of blossom, and wealth of umbrageous leaf, [104] its polished mahogany fruit, and its special medicinal virtues, is _facile princeps_ the belle of our English trees. But, like many a ball-room beauty, when the time comes for putting aside the gay leafy attire, it is sadly untidy, and makes a great litter of its cast-off clothing. It has been ingeniously suggested that the cicatrix of the leaf resembles a horse-shoe, with all its nails evenly placed.