American Chestnut, Clear Creek State Forest, PA, USA

[hazmat1000]

I sure hope some of the pure american chestnuts are developing some blight resistance. I have a 3 year old from the ACCF and it has been blighted since I got the 1 year old seedling and has not died back yet!! It is fighting the blight and still growing very very well.

[hazmat1000]

surely someone is collecting pollen from that tree for the breeding programs??

[bizznych]

The Chestnut evolved with the passenger pigeon, they were known to be the only birds able to extract the nut from the husk while hovering in flight.

Who really knows how these trees could survive without their symbiotic species.

[juglanscinerea]

I think that's kind of a big logical leap to make. Bears, elk, squirrels, deer, raccoons, mice, turkeys etc. all eat chestnuts. Squirrels plant chestnuts just as they do with closely related acorns. And of course humans plant chestnuts. And other chestnut species thrive in places where the passenger pigeon never lived, all across Eurasia. The extinction of the passenger pigeon is an aching pain. I would love to have seen them and maybe even eaten them, but we killed them all. We suck.

[ckilgore1]

Any idea of the age. Has it shown any sign of the blight? Tree looks very healthy. Some who have been studying these trees think that possibly some of the few remaining trees may be developing a resistance to the blight.

[fjeffrey10]

It's a good thing this tree is protected. American Chestnut trees once took up approximately .4 of the Appalachians until a Asian version of Chestnut blight came over here and originally got discovered on American Chestnut trees in The Bronx Zoo in 1904 and has since wiped out about 99.99% of their population. In 2005 I found some American Chestnut trees out in the woods that were small and scattered, so I notified the American Chestnut foundation and they confirmed that I was right.