How many different strains of chestnuts are there? I remember in the 70’s, there were two pretty healthy chestnut trees in a patch below the house... (West Tennessee)
Really sharp spikes on the hulls of the nuts, and really meaty brown kernals inside, about the size of 1/3 of a golf ball, I guess. I seem to remember my grandfather calling them “Horse Chestnuts”.
Chestnut is a common name for several species of trees in the genus Castanea, in the Beech family Fagaceae.
Neither the horse chestnut (family Sapindaceae) nor the water chestnut (family Cyperaceae) is closely related to the chestnut, though both are so named for producing similar nuts. The name Castanea comes from an old Latin name for the sweet chestnut.
American Chestnuts are special and rare.