The American Chestnut, part 1

For my semester long project on the American Chestnut I had to read and summarize a scholarly article for tomorrow. My article was published in the Journal of Biogeography in 2002 and is titled "Chestnut: history and ecology of a transformed tree".

I found this article very interesting because the author argues that the American chestnut is not in the process of extinction, it is just being transformed. Because the blight that affects the chestnuts attacks them once they reach a height of 15 meters, the chestnuts have adapted themselves to be smaller, more shrub-like, instead of tall, canopy-dominant trees.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries chestnuts accounted for more than 50% of harvested timber in the eastern US, which made the chestnut important economically.

Unfortunately, since many people saw that the chestnuts were dying from the blight, most of them were cut down, even though there are still some tall chestnuts standing today. There are some near Blowing Rock that I am going to try to get some pictures of for my project. Once I find them and get pictures I will post them on here.

Don't forget to check out The American Chestnut Foundation's website!