The naturalist, explorer and plant collector William Bartram first noted this undescribed shrub on his travels through Carolina, Georgia and Florida in 1773–78.Noted by Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and Their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Aesculus"; Bartram's botanizing explorations were recorded in his Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc., 1791. An old example was still to be found in Bartram's Garden, Philadelphia, in 1930.Coats 1992.
