Where Are All the American Chestnut Trees?

Once upon a time, there were four billion American chestnut trees. Not so long ago, the American chestnut was one of the most important trees of forests from Maine south to Florida, from the Piedmont west to the Ohio valley. In the heart of its range only a few generations ago, a count of trees would have turned up one chestnut for every four oaks, birches, maples and other hardwoods. Many of the dry ridgetops of the central Appalachians were so thoroughly crowded with chestnut that, in early summer, when their canopies were filled with creamy-white flowers, the mountains appeared snow-capped.


And the trees could be giants. In virgin forests throughout their range, mature chestnuts averaged up to five feet in diameter and up to one hundred feet tall. Many specimens of eight to ten feet in diameter were recorded, and there were rumors of trees bigger still.

Native wildlife from birds to bears, squirrels to deer, depended on the tree's abundant crops of nutritious nuts. And chestnut was a central part of eastern rural economies. As winter came on, attics were often stacked to the rafters with flour bags full of the glossy, dark brown nuts. Springhouses and smokehouses were hung with hams and other products from livestock that had fattened on the harvest gleanings. And what wasn't consumed was sold.

Then came the blight. First discovered in 1904 in New York City, the blight - an Asian fungus to which our native chestnuts had very little resistance - spread quickly. In its wake it left only dead and dying stems. By 1950, except for the shrubby root sprouts the species continually produces (and which also quickly become infected), the keystone species on some nine million acres of eastern forests had disappeared.

The American Chestnut Foundation is devoted to bringing chestnut trees back to America. Goddess knows, we need more trees. Trees make the air we breathe. It's that simple.

I love the work the ACF is doing. In one way, it's this hopeless, romantic cause. And, in another way, it's one of the best uses of science there is.

Can you help them out? They need money, but they also need people to grow chestnut seedlings and report their results. They also catalog trees that have survived the blight. If you think you've found one; let them know!