A garden hybrid (Aesculus hippocastanum x A. pavia) grown for its showy, upright panicles of rose-red to pink flowers in mid-spring, set against bold, dark-green, palmately compound leaves. It makes a tidy 30-40 foot medium shade or specimen tree with a dense, pyramidal-to-rounded crown. Its main selling point over the common horse chestnut is health: red horse chestnut is far less prone to the leaf blotch and leaf scorch that brown out and disfigure A. hippocastanum by late summer, so the canopy holds up better through the season. The flowers draw bees and, with their narrow rose-red tubular florets, hummingbirds. One load-bearing caution applies: like all Aesculus, the smooth brown seeds (conkers) and other parts are toxic if eaten, so site it thoughtfully where there are children or pets. It is a low-seed-set hybrid, not weedy or invasive.