Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fagales > Fagaceae > Castanea > Castanea dentata

Castanea dentata (American chestnut)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) is a large, monoecious deciduous tree of the beech family native to eastern North America. Before the species was devastated by the chestnut blight, a fungal disease, it was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range, and was considered the finest chestnut tree in the world. It is estimated that between 3 and 4 billion American chestnut trees were destroyed in the first half of the 20th century by blight after its initial discovery in 1904. Very few mature specimens of the tree exist within its historical range, although many small shoots of the former live trees remain. There are hundreds of large (2 to 5 ft diameter) American chestnuts outside its historical range, some in areas where less virulent strains of the pathogen are more
View Wikipedia Record: Castanea dentata

Endangered Species

Status: Critically Endangered
View IUCN Record: Castanea dentata

Attributes

Air Quality Improvement [1]  Low
Allergen Potential [1]  Medium
Carbon Capture [1]  Low
Screening - Summer [2]  Dense
Screening - Winter [2]  Porous
Shade Percentage [1]  80 %
Temperature Reduction [1]  Medium-Low
Wind Reduction [1]  Medium-Low
Bloom Period [2]  Early Summer
Drought Tolerance [2]  Medium
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [2]  None
Flower Type [3]  Monoecious
Frost Free Days [2]  5 months
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  Medium
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Fall
Growth Form [2]  Single Stem
Growth Period [2]  Spring
Growth Rate [2]  Rapid
Janka Hardness [4]  540 lbf (245 kgf) Very Soft
Leaf Type [3]  Deciduous
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Propagation [2]  Bare Root, Container, Seed
Root Depth [2]  20 inches (51 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  None
Seed Vigor [2]  High
Seeds Per [2]  100 / lb (220 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Erect
Specific Gravity [5]  0.43
Structure [3]  Tree
Usage [3]  The bark is a good source of tannin; The dried leaves contain 9% tannin; The wood and the seed husks also contain tannin; The husks contain 10 - 13% tannin; A brown dye is obtained from the bark; Wood - soft, not strong, light, very durable, liable to warp. It weighs 28lb per cubic foot. Easy to split, it is used for making cheap furniture, fence posts, in construction etc;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  None
Flower Color [2]  White
Foliage Color [2]  Yellow
Fruit Color [2]  Brown
Fall Conspicuous [2]  Yes
Fruit Conspicuous [2]  Yes
Height [3]  98 feet (30 m)
Width [3]  49 feet (15 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 4 Low Temperature: -30 F° (-34.4 C°) → -20 F° (-28.9 C°)
Hardiness Zone Maximum [1]  USDA Zone: 8 Low Temperature: 10 F° (-12.2 C°) → 20 F° (-6.7 C°)
Light Preference [2]  Full Sun
Soil Acidity [2]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [2]  Intermediate
Water Use [1]  Moderate to Low
View Plants For A Future Record : Castanea dentata

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Agrilus bilineatus (Twolined Chestnut Borer)[9]
Brachys aerosus[9]

Range Map

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1i-Tree Species v. 4.0, developed by the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and SUNY-ESF using the Horticopia, Inc. plant database.
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4Wood Janka Hardness Scale/Chart J W Morlan's Unique Wood Gifts
♦ 5Forest Inventory and Analysis DB version 5.1, May 4, 2013, U.S. Forest Service
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 8Neotoma magister, Steven B. Castleberry, Michael T. Mengak, and W. Mark Ford, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 789, pp. 1-5 (2006)
♦ 9Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0