The leaves of Aesculus glabra are opposite and palmately compound with 5 leaflets. The only other tree of that description in Wisconsin is Aesculus hippocastanum. The buds of A. glabra are not sticky as in A. hippocastanum, the leaflets are conspicuously different in shape and the flowers are yellow as opposed to white in A. hippocastanum.

Aesculus glabra ranges from the eastern portions of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, east to Tennessee and Ohio and barely extending north into the sourthern-most counties of Michigan. It is successfully cultivated in Wisconsin, but there are few genuine instances of this species escaping from cultivation.