Kastanien, originally uploaded by siggi2234.
I have been searching for chestnut trees in my area and have not been able to locate one tree. This send me off to find out weather this tree even grows in California.
Apparently a fungus attacked these trees in 1905 and pretty much wiped the trees out.
What a shame! At one time the American chestnut trees grew up to 150 feet in height and 10 feet in diameter. They could be found from Maine to Mississippi and from the Atlantic Coast to the Ohio Valley and all that remains today are a few trees scattered here and there.
The good news is that the American Chestnut Foundation has been working at repopulating areas with a crossbreed using a more resilient Asian variant and has planted these hybrids throughout several states.
After all this searching I located a few trees in Northern California, but still don't know if we have any in Southern California.
