American Chestnut (Hybrid)

Castanea dentata

Planting a hybrid American chestnut is one of the most meaningful things a landowner can do for forest restoration in the East. The straight species was functionally wiped out by chestnut blight in the early twentieth century, eliminating a tree that once produced three billion pounds of mast annually and fed bears, deer, turkeys, and people throughout the Appalachians. These blight-resistant breeding lines bring that back. Long catkins in summer are intensely fragrant. the scent is strong, almost musky-sweet, noticeable from a distance. Fall brings spiny husks and the glossy brown nuts inside, consumed quickly by wildlife. Growth is fast, form is majestic, and every chestnut planted represents a step toward reestablishing a tree that defined eastern forest ecology for millennia.