Boy Sailing a Chestnut Boat in a Puddle

A smiling boy with tousled hair crouches at the edge of a wide puddle. He wears a hooded jacket with ribbed cuffs and tall rubber boots, and he leans forward to let his handmade boat go. The boat is a chestnut with a maple leaf standing upright in it like a sail, and the boy steadies the leaf gently with his fingers. Ripples spread across the water around the little vessel. Two more fallen maple leaves lie at the edges of the puddle, and small tufts of grass grow along the bank.

Conkers, Chestnuts and Autumn Leaves

The shiny brown nuts children collect in autumn usually come from the horse chestnut tree. In Britain these seeds are called conkers, and they give their name to a traditional game in which players swing a conker on a string to crack an opponent's. The World Conker Championships have been held in England since 1965. Horse chestnuts are mildly poisonous, so they are for playing and crafts, not for eating; roasted chestnuts come from a different tree, the sweet chestnut.

Maple leaves change color because trees stop making green chlorophyll as the days shorten. Once it fades, yellow and orange pigments that were hidden all summer become visible, and many maples also produce new red pigments called anthocyanins.