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The King of the
Eastern Forest
By John Glenn,
Landscape Architect
The American chestnut tree was once the king of the eastern forest.
It was so important to the country that it became part of our
culture. The tree was immortalized in song phrases, such as
“chestnuts roasting on an open fire” and in the song “I’ll be seeing
you in all the old familiar places.”
Although we think of the tree as an eastern species, the Yosemite
Valley in California was once a much different landscape, full of
chestnut tree orchards managed by the Native American people for nut
production. The Native American people of the area would burn the
chestnut forest floor to keep the spruce and other evergreens out of
the areas and then collect the nuts that had fallen on the forest
floor. The chestnut tree was also a huge food source for turkey,
deer, squirrels, and other animals found in America’s woodlands.
Farmers through the Appalachians fattened hogs and livestock
on chestnuts. The lumber was valuable and used in many different
applications from furniture, tobacco stakes, and telephone poles to
flooring, shingles and building materials.
Then, in the early 20th century, a shipment of Chinese chestnuts
brought to Long Island from the Netherlands carried an exotic blight
that changed the American landscape forever. The Manager of
Horticulture at the Central Park Zoo first identified the Chestnut
Blight. This blight quickly spread throughout the eastern
United States. The lumber industry saw the destruction and raced to
remove healthy trees in order to harvest the valuable lumber before
the blight killed them. The devastation took the American chestnut
to the brink of extinction.
Some chestnuts survived the blight, as well as logging efforts, in
pockets across the country. One such lone survivor is a tree in
Adair County, Kentucky. These isolated trees cannot set nuts by
themselves, however, and new seedlings are exceedingly rare.
These remnants of the forest are subjects of research to develop a
blight-resistant tree by cross-pollination with the Chinese
chestnut, which is resistant to the blight. The Kentucky Chapter of
The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF-KY) has become the Johnny
Appleseed of the American chestnut tree. This organization is
distributing seedlings from pollination of the Adair County tree for
test planting to help identify areas where the chestnuts will grow
well in Kentucky.
A large study and reintroduction of chestnut trees to the Mammoth
Cave National Park is currently underway. And now, in partnership
with TACF-KY, the Louisville Zoo will become home to several trees
from the Adair County mother tree. The Zoo is excited about joining
this important conservation effort, and we will eventually be
testing new varieties of blight-resistant chestnut trees. If the
project is successful, the hope is to plant the trees in other areas
of Jefferson County, including the Metro parks.
While the Zoo has a Chinese chestnut located at the top of the
Islands area walk on the plaza, the American chestnuts will be
located in another area of the Zoo that will provide a better
growing site for the trees. The MetaZoo Education Center will be
involved in the educational aspect of this program by conducting
classes that teach the story of a tree. Classes may be designed to
include tours of the trees. Eventually, the trees will be
visible from the Zoo’s train ride. TTACF-KY will also graciously
donate signage to inform Zoo guests of the history of the chestnut
tree and the restoration project.
TACF-KY is also asking for help locating chestnut trees in our area
in order to develop a census of any other trees that may have been
missed or overlooked. Much like the sighting of an endangered animal
species, finding one of these now rare trees is exciting and
special.
If you find a tree, or know of other chestnuts in the Jefferson
County area, you can be a part of the restoration by contacting
Anne Myers, the Jefferson County contact for The American Chestnut
Foundation, at (502)634-1790 or
ammyers@massmed.org.
The future for the tree looks good with new research and breeding
programs, and promising attempts to develop a blightresistant tree.
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