How to tell the difference between chestnuts and conkers

[paulamathers]

I want to make mushroom and chestnut soup, but don't want to use conkers by mistake!! How do i tell the difference when looking in the woods?

[mccfluff]

found this

The trees can grow very large (70 feet or more) and the chestnuts are produced once a year. They are contained inside a prickly case called a burr. In the autumn, once ripe, the burr splits open allowing the chestnuts to fall to the ground. By the way, don't confuse edible chestnuts with the semi-poisonous nuts of the common Horse-Chestnut tree (conkers) which ripen at the same time and are of a similar size, shape and colour. You can tell edible chestnuts from conkers by the fact that edible chestnuts have a point at the top of the nut whereas conkers don'

From here
http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/Specials%20and%20H olidays/Chestnuts%20Origin%20Uses%20Recipes.ht m

[bimbo123456]

Also, conker outsides are less prickly.

[taichiperson]

The cases are very different - sweet chestnuts are very prickly, with fine needle-like points, horse chestnuts are very coarse and bumpy rather than prickly. However, sweet chestnut does not always produce viable nuts in our climate - if you live in the south you might find some. Where do you live?

[heathfield]

Sweet chestnut (the edible one) looks like this, while horse chestnut is shown here. Note the unmistakeable differences in leaf shape ant nut casings.

[theonlyone]

You will have a problem peeling a conker ! Are you on a wind up !