CHESTNUT  

The chestnuts, or chinquapins, Castanea, are deciduous hardwood trees belonging to the beech family, Fagacae. Chestnuts have deciduous serrate leaves. The fruit is characterized by two to four compartmented burrs covered with needle-sharp branched spines. About ten species are found in southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern and eastern Asia, and the eastern United States. The nuts of the Chinese chestnut, C. mollissima, and the Japanese chestnut, C. crenata, are important sources of food in their native countries. Large quantities of nuts are also exported to the United States. Oriental chestnuts and the Spanish chestnut, C. sativa, are also planted in the United States. The most famous of the chestnuts is the American chestnut, C. dentata. In the early part of the 20th century, more than one-fourth of all hardwood sawtimber in the southern Appalachian Mountains of the United States was cut from the American chestnut. However, it was eliminated as a commercial species by a blight caused by the fungus Endothia parasitica. Scientists have since found that inoculation of trees with attenuated strains of E. parasitica may protect trees against more virulent strains.