This species is not resistant to chestnut blight. Its planting is legally restricted in some areas within the native range of the America...Read Moren chestnut (C. dentata).
Very attractive large tree (up to 35m tall) with bold, glossy foliage, and edible, sweet nuts. Late to leaf in spring, but holds leaves w...Read Moreell into autumn.
Although native to the eastern Mediterranean region with very hot, dry summers, it is also surprisingly adaptable to the cold, wet summers of northern Britain, producing viable seed and regenerating naturally even in northern Scotland.
I love the shape of this tree. It looks vigorous when it grows and gives you the idea that its wood is quite hard. I don't know why! ...Read More>
Anyway! One thing I don't like about it, are the flowers. I mean, they look OK but when the tree is blooming, I'm not sure if that "disitnctive scent" is pleasant at all! It gives me nausea! It reminds me of the Ceratonia siliqua! They both kind of stink! I can't be close to this tree when it blooms!
Josephine, Arlington, TX (Zone 8a) | October 2004 | positive
Hello Philomel, I was born in Spain and grew up in the south in Cordoba.
I lived with my aunt in the mountains and there were many...Read More chestnut trees around there. We loved picking them and eating them roasted which makes them delicious. Also if you let them cure for about a month after harvest the inner membrane will separate very easily and they are very sweet and nutty tasting. Your picture brought back a lot of pleasant memories.
Over here people apreciate it in the "portuguese manner", boiled in water. The nut can be "peeled" with a knife, and the edible part beco...Read Moremes soft.
I don´t like it very much, personally. This boiled chestnut tastes like nothing to me.
On a side note, the portuguese colonizers in Brazil brought these nuts with them and planted in cooler places. But the chestnut was so popular, that they even associated the brown color with the chestnut portuguese name "castanha" (from latin Castanea, which is the scientific name of this genus), as the chestnut shell has a strong brown color. Nowadays, we here in Brazil use a lot the word "castanha" or "castanho" as a common synonym for "brown".
This makes an extremely handsome large tree (100' tall by 50' wide or so) when left to reach its full potential. The flowers are long han...Read Moreging creamy yellow tassels which have a very disitnctive scent. Where just a few specimens occur this can be quite pleasant but when a whole wood is flowering I find the scent too sickly sweet. The bark becomes interestingly ridged as the tree matures and the leaves turn a rich yellow in autumn before they fall.
The fruits are held within a prickly outer coat. When released they are a very beautiful shiny reddish 'chestnut' brown. They were a staple form of starch in many southern european countries - much used here in SW France - despite being very fiddly to prepare as the thin skin clinging to the wrinkled cream coloured kernel of the nuts is very bitter and difficult to remove.
Many people enjoy them roasted in their shells (over an open fire LOL), when this skin becomes more easily removable.
In SE England, Kent and Sussex in particular, there are many acres of Sweet Chestnut coppice. These trees are managed in a rotational coppicing. Short rotation coppicing is done every 3 to 5 years to produce walking sticks, bean poles and smaller fencing items. Long rotation coppicing is done every 15 to 25 years and the resulting timber is used for fencing and rustic furniture etc.
This species is not resistant to chestnut blight. Its planting is legally restricted in some areas within the native range of the America...Read More
Very attractive large tree (up to 35m tall) with bold, glossy foliage, and edible, sweet nuts. Late to leaf in spring, but holds leaves w...Read More
I love the shape of this tree. It looks vigorous when it grows and gives you the idea that its wood is quite hard. I don't know why!
...Read More
Hello Philomel, I was born in Spain and grew up in the south in Cordoba.
I lived with my aunt in the mountains and there were many...Read More
Over here people apreciate it in the "portuguese manner", boiled in water. The nut can be "peeled" with a knife, and the edible part beco...Read More
This makes an extremely handsome large tree (100' tall by 50' wide or so) when left to reach its full potential. The flowers are long han...Read More