Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: American Chestnut |
American ChestnutNoun1. Large tree found from Maine to Alabama. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Synonyms: American ChestnutSynonyms: American sweet chestnut (n), Castanea dentata (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Once an important hardwood timber tree, the chestnuts are highly suceptable to an Asian bark fungus or "chestnut blight" Cryphonectria parasitica (formerly Endothia parasitica) accidentally introduced to America on Chinese Chestnut ornamental nursery stock at the Bronx Zoo in 1904. While Chinese Chestnuts evolved with the blight and are immune, the airborn bark fungus spread 50 miles a year and in a few decades girdled and killed the millions of American trees. Fortunatly, the stumps survive and send new shoots, and so the species has been saved from eradication, although the stump sprouts rarely reach more than 20 feet in height before blight infection.
It is estimated that one out of four trees within its range were American chestnut, for a total of some 3.5 billion trees. The number of surviving mature trees can now be counted in the mere dozens, due to the blight. The finest surviving sample (featured in National Geographic) can be found in Sherwood, Oregon, where from the roadside, one can glimpse the giant spreading tree, as much of the West is still free of blight.
The American chestnut is a prolific bearer of nuts, usually found in sets of three, enclosed in a spiny green burr, lined in tan velvet. The nuts develop through late summer, the burrs opening and falling to the ground near the first fall frost. These nuts were once an important economic resource in the U.S., even being sold on the streets of larger cities, as they sometimes still are during the Christmas season (usually "roasting on an open fire" so their smell is readily identifiable many blocks away).
Chestnuts are edible raw or roasted- though preferably roasted. The European variety sold in many stores. One must peal the brown skin to acess the yellow edible portion. (Note that the horsechestnut 'conkers' are poisonous)
The wood was straight grained, strong as oak, although easier to saw and more easily split, lacking radial end grain found on most other hardwoods. The tree was particularly valuable commercially since it would grow at a rate five times faster than oaks. Being rich in tannins, the wood was highly resistant to decay and therefore used for a variety of purposes, including furniture, split-rail fences shingles, home construction, flooring, piers, plywood, paperpulp, and telephone poles. Tannins were extracted from the bark for tanning leather. Although larger trees are no longer available for milling, much chestnut lumber has been reclaimed from historic barns to be refashioned into furniture and other items. "Wormy" chestnut refers to a defective grade of lumber that has insect damage, having been sawn from a blighted tree. This "wormy" wood has since become fashionable for its rustic character.
The American chestnut was also a critically important tree for wildlife, providing much of the fall mast for wildlife species such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey and formerly the passenger pigeon.
Several organizations are attempting to breed blight-resistant chestnuts. One of these is the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation, atChestnut Blight
Surviving trees
Nuts
Lumber
Importance to Wildlife
Breeding for Blight Resistance
http://www.ppws.vt.edu/griffin/accf.html
which breeds surviving all-American chestnuts, which have shown some native resistance to blight. Another is The American Chestnut Foundation at
http://www.acf.org
which is backcrossing blight resistant American/Chinese hybrids to American parents, to recover the American growth characteristics and genetic makeup, and then finally intercrossing the advanced generations in order to breed consistantly for blight resistance. The eventual goal is to reintroduce the species to the wild.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "American chestnut."
Crosswords: American Chestnut |
| English words defined with "American chestnut": belted kingfisher ♦ Ceryle alcyon, chestnut blight, chestnut canker, chestnut-bark disease ♦ Polyphemus ♦ red-tailed hawk. (references) |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Parkers Creek, off Chesapeake Bay, in the American Chestnut Land Trust Area.Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | Mary Hollinger at Parkers Creek, off Chesapeake Bay, in the American Chestnut Land Trust Area.Credit: America's Coastlines. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
american chestnut | 50 |
american chestnut tree | 17 |
american chestnut foundation | 8 |
american chestnut folk art | 7 |
american chestnut land trust | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-c-e-e-h-i-m-n-n-r-s-t-t-u" | |
-3 letters: ascertainment. | |
-4 letters: metacentrics, neurasthenia, neurasthenic, transhumance, trenchancies. | |
-5 letters: accentuates, accruements, anaesthetic, anthracenes, anthracites, antinatures, cachinnates, cantatrices, catechumens, enrichments, innumerates, intumescent, metacentric, remittances, renunciates, technetiums, tetracaines, transhumant, unaesthetic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 6D 65 72 69 63 61 6E 43 68 65 73 74 6E 75 74 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01101101 01100101 01110010 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01000011 01101000 01100101 01110011 01110100 01101110 01110101 01110100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A m e r i c a n   C h e s t n u t |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 006D 0065 0072 0069 0063 0061 006E 0043 0068 0065 0073 0074 006E 0075 0074 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)357971847569678023774718586808786 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Anagrams 8. Orthography | 9. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
