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["Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>]

I ran across a description of a chestnut in Japan that bears nuts very
early, often when the tree is only 3 feet tall.  Does anyone have any
more information on this Kobo Chestnut?
See the information that I found in the text below.
-Mark Lee, Seattle, zone 8a
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A Japanese Folktale:
"The Kobo Chestnut Trees"
In the mountains around Fukiage Pass in Nagura-mura, Kita Shidara-gun,
grow chestnut trees called Kobo chestnuts. Those trees bear fruit very
young, even when they are only 3 feet high.
Hundreds of years ago there was a big chestnut tree on this pass. Boys
would rush to climb it to pick the chestnuts, but little children could
not climb the tree. One day while they were weeping, a traveling priest
passed by, saw the little children crying, and said: "Well, you shall be
able to pick the chestnuts from next year on."
The next year every small young chestnut tree bore fruit so that the
little children could pick them easily. The villagers thought that the
traveling priest must have been St. Kobo, and since then they have
called these the Kobo chestnut trees.