Posted on 05/18/2006 7:10:14 PM PDT by nypokerface
ALBANY, Ga. - A stand of American chestnut trees that somehow escaped a blight that killed off nearly all their kind in the early 1900s has been discovered along a hiking trail not far from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Little White House at Warm Springs.
The find has stirred excitement among those working to restore the American chestnut, and raised hopes that scientists might be able to use the pollen to breed hardier chestnut trees.
"There's something about this place that has allowed them to endure the blight," said Nathan Klaus, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who spotted the trees. "It's either that these trees are able to resist the blight, which is unlikely, or Pine Mountain has something unique that is giving these trees resistance."
Experts say it could be that the chestnuts have less competition from other trees along the dry, rocky ridge. The fungus that causes the blight thrives in a moist environment.
The largest of the half-dozen or so trees is about 40 feet tall and 20 to 30 years old, and is believed to be the southernmost American chestnut discovered so far that is capable of flowering and producing nuts.
"This is a terrific find," said David Keehn, president of the Georgia chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation. "A tree of this size is one in a million."
The rugged area known as Pine Mountain is at the southern end of the Appalachians near Warm Springs, where Roosevelt built a home and sought treatment after he was stricken with polio in 1921.
"FDR may have roasted some chestnuts on his fire for Christmas or enjoyed their blooms in the spring," Klaus said.
The chestnut foundation may use pollen from the tree in a breeding program aimed at restoring the population with blight-resistant trees.
"When the flowers are right, we're going to rush down and pollinate the flowers, collect the seeds a few weeks later and collect the nuts," Klaus said. "If we ever find a genetic solution to the chestnut blight, genes from that tree will find their way into those trees."
The chestnut foundation has been working for about 15 years to develop a blight-resistant variety. The goal is to infuse the American chestnut with the blight-resistant genes of the Chinese chestnut.
American chestnuts once made up about 25 percent of the forests in the eastern United States, with an estimated 4 billion trees from Maine to Mississippi and Florida.
The trees helped satisfy demand for roasted chestnuts, and their rot-resistant wood was used to make fence posts, utility poles, barns, homes, furniture and musical instruments.
Then these magnificent hardwoods, which could grow to a height of 100 feet and a diameter of 8 feet or more, were almost entirely wiped out by a fast-spreading fungus discovered in 1904.
"There are no chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and if they are, they're Chinese," Keehn said.
Wasn't more than a year ago that I was visitng Warm Springs, GA.
Why couldn't I have discovered those trees myself? [silly-self-pity-partying rant off]
Guess that's the first miracle. Two more and Roosevelt will become Democratism's first official Saint.
I could swear we have chestnut here in upstate NY. I remember collecting chestnuts when I was a kid.
Larger though not as hairy.
The blight killed most of the trees but not the roots. Some chestnuts have repeatedly died and sprouted again from their root collars for the past 70 years. The real question here is are these trees regrowth from older tree or are they reproducing successfully from their nuts? I am disappointed that the article does not go more into depth on this subject.
Same here in Michigan...Maybe it was hazlenuts...They certainly looked the the ones in the picture below your post tho...
I have an American chestnut in my backyard, apparently a sucker from a blighted tree which has matured to the point where it is 40 feet high and dropping a pretty good crop. On my endless "to do" list is a note to contact somebody involved in restoring the chestnuts, if possible; if anyone already knows who that might be, let me know.
So, the Chinese have bigger nuts than us???
Chestnut blight is apparently still around, and I've read that the chestnut saplings that spring up from time to time are promptly killed by the blight. So why these trees survive, I don't know. I also wonder why in the hundred years since the blight appeared somebody hasn't developed a way to kill it. Now that this isolated grove of precious chestnut trees has been discovered I'm afraid it won't be long before somebody comes to visit them and brings a spore of the blight with him.
Problem is...two hours later you're Honri again.
Thanks for the photos. After I posted, I googled. I apologize. I was wrong. It is hickory nuts I remember, not chestnuts.
Made me thing of this:
The Village Blacksmith
UNDER a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can, 10
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge 15
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door; 20
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And watch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church, 25
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice. 30
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 35
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close; 40
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life 45
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Fastest HTML in the west....
Up in the mountains of north Georgia there are still big old logs from these trees rotting away. New tree spring up from the roots and start to grow but before they get very big they die. We have several on our place, I thought I read somewhere that there was a grove of chestnut trees discovered up north somewhere that were resistant to the blight and they were going to try to get them started back with them.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
O.K.
It's gay as Hell.
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
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