CASTANEA DENTATA, American Chestnut
- Castanea dentata, Borkhausen, Handb. Forstbot. i. 741 (1800) ; Sargent, Silva N. Amer, ix. 13, tt. 440, 441 (1896), and Man. Trees. N. Amer. 220 (1905).
- Castanea vesca americana, Michaux, Fl. Bor. Amer. ii. 193 (1803); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1984 (1838).
- Castanea americana, Rafinesque, New Pl. iii. 82 (1836).
- Castanea vulgaris, γ. americana, A. De Candolle, Prod. xvi. 2, p. 114 (1864).
- Castanea sativa, var. americana, Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 484 (1889).
- Fagus Castanea dentata, Marshall, Arbust. Amer. 46 (1785).
A tree attaining in America 100 feet in height. Bark dark brown, and divided by shallow irregular fissures into broad flat ridges, separating on the surface into small thin appressed scales. Young branchlets with minute scurfy pubescence above, and with long hairs near the base; glabrous and grey in the second year.
Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 13), pendulous, oblong-lanceolate, gradually tapering and unequal at the base, long acuminate at the apex, with about twenty pairs of parallel nerves, raised on the under surface, each ending in a triangular tooth, which is prolonged into a fine point ; upper surface dull, dark green, glabrous ; lower surface lighter green, glabrous, or with minute scattered hairs, thin but firm in texture. Petiole, $ to 2 inch long, glabrous. Stipules, ovate-lanceolate, acute, puberulous, about 4 inch long.
Nut,’ usually much compressed, ½ to 1 inch wide, gradually acuminate at the apex ; two to three fruits together in each involucre.
This species is distinguished from the European one by the leaves being always cuneate and never cordate at the base, and never having any stellate tomentum, the under surface being either glabrous or covered with minute glandular hairs.
In winter it is readily distinguishable from C. sativa by the glabrous twigs and the more pointed ovoid buds, which have glabrous ciliate scales as in that species. The buds are smaller than in C. sativa, being only about 3⁄16 inch long. In the specimens seen the twigs are much more slender, with very minute lenticels and small semicircular leaf-scars. (A.H.)
In America the chestnut is a common tree, and has a wide range from New England and southern Ontario southward along the Alleghany Mountains to central Alabama and Mississippi, and westward to Michigan, Indiana, central Kentucky, and Tennessee. So far as I have seen it does not attain so large a size as the European species, though Sargent says it occasionally reaches 100 feet in height.’ The largest I saw was a fine old tree on the lawn of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer’s house at Lancaster, Mass., which was 80 feet by 13 feet 6 inches, and though rather decayed at the top, where its branches were supported by iron stays, had produced suckers from the root, 40 feet high.
1 The seedling of this species is described and figured by Rowlee and Hastings, in Bot. Gazette, xxvi. 351, fig. 18 (1898).
2 In U.S. Forest Service, Circ. 71 (1907), a leaflet on the cultivation of this species, it is stated that the tree has been known in the region of its best development to reach a height of 120 feet. Throughout the greatest part of its range, it is much smaller, with an average height of 80 to 100 feet, and a diameter of from 2 to 4 feet.
