Horse chestnut or sycamore?

Both are big domed park trees that go scaly-barked with age.

The quickest check

The quickest check is the parts of one leaf. Horse chestnut: five to seven separate leaflets from one point. Sycamore: one blade with five pointed lobes. No leaves on the tree? Check the winter bud.

At a glance

Look at	Horse chestnut	Sycamore
Parts of one leaf	Five to seven separate leaflets from one point	One blade with five pointed lobes
Winter bud	Large, reddish brown and tacky to the touch	Big, green and egg-shaped, sometimes red-tipped
Fruit	A glossy conker in a green spiny husk	Paired winged keys, wings at a right angle or narrower

Three ways to tell them apart

Parts of one leafLeaves

Horse chestnut: parts of one leaf — Horse chestnutFive to seven separate leaflets from one point

Sycamore: parts of one leaf — SycamoreOne blade with five pointed lobes

Winter budTwigs and buds

Horse chestnut: winter bud — Horse chestnutLarge, reddish brown and tacky to the touch

Sycamore: winter bud — SycamoreBig, green and egg-shaped, sometimes red-tipped

FruitConkers

Horse chestnut: fruit — Horse chestnutA glossy conker in a green spiny husk

Sycamore: fruit — SycamorePaired winged keys, wings at a right angle or narrower

Think you can tell them apart now? Try the tree quiz: real photographs, and what gives each tree away.Take the quiz

The two trees

Horse chestnut

Aesculus hippocastanum

Horse chestnut grows into a massive dome. Its big leaves have five to seven leaflets joined straight to the end of one long stalk. White flower candles cover it in May.

How to identify horse chestnut →

Sycamore

Acer pseudoplatanus

Sycamore grows into a huge, heavy dome. Its large leaves have five lobes edged with coarse, blunt teeth, and its paired keys hang with their wings set at a right angle or narrower.

How to identify sycamore →

Their other lookalikes

Horse chestnut or sweet chestnut?Quickest check: the blades on one stalk

Sycamore or common ash?Quickest check: the whole leaf

Sycamore or field maple?Quickest check: the lobes and their teeth

Sycamore or Japanese maple?Quickest check: the leaf edge

Sycamore or London plane?Quickest check: how the leaves sit

Sycamore or Norway maple?Quickest check: the leaf edge

In the app

See them side by side in Treely

Both trees, part by partLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed through the year
Every lookalike side by sideThe checks that settle it, for every pair people mix up
A short round each dayUntil you can tell them apart at a glance
The full GuideBoth trees written up in full, with where to find them

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Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.

Photographs: Florin Feneru (CC BY 4.0), pete_gateley (CC0), steve_mcwilliam (CC0), Kieran Roy Powell (CC BY 4.0), oliverc29 (CC BY 4.0), Yves Bas (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.