Chestnut

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Chestnuts (Castanea), including the chinkapins, are a genus of eight or nine species of trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the nuts produced by these trees. Most are large trees to 20-40 m tall, but some species (the chinkapins) are smaller, often shrubby. All are deciduous.

The leaves are simple, ovate or lanceolate, 10-30 cm long and 4-10 cm broad, with sharply pointed, widely-spaced teeth, with shallow rounded sinuses between. The flowers are catkins, produced in mid summer. The fruit is a spiny cupule 5-11 cm diameter, containing 2-7 nuts.

The American Chestnut, formerly one of the dominant trees of the eastern United States, has been almost wiped out by a fungal diesase, chestnut blight Cryphonectria parasitica. The American chinkapins are also very susceptible to chestnut blight. The European and west Asian Sweet Chestnut is slightly susceptible, but less so than the American, and the east Asian species are resistant. These resistant species, particularly Japanese Chestnut and Chinese Chestnut but also Seguin's Chestnut and Henry's Chestnut, have been used in breeding programs in the US to create hybrids with the American chestnut that are also disease resistant.

Uses

The nuts are commonly eaten roasted or candied; the latter are often sold under the French name marrons glacés. The wood is moderately useful, similar to oak wood in being decorative and very durable, but of much value due to the high degree of splitting and warping when it dries. This makes large pieces of wood difficult to obtain; most chestnut wood is used in small items where the durability is important, such as fencing and wooden outdoor cladding ('shingles') for buildings. The bark was also a useful source of natural tannins, used for tanning leather before the introduction of synthetic tannins.