North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

> I have seen a few chestnut trees in
> WVa.  They sprout up six of seven
> feet and then die back to to the stump and then repeat this
> growth
> pattern.

That sounds like a symptom of the dread chestnut blight. Are these native 
chestnuts?

> Maybe you are looking at a horse
> chestnut.  Do you know
> what a real chestnut tree looks like?

The burrs look unmistakably different. Horse chestnuts look like they know 
they hardly need to make any effort to keep out squirrels, while real 
chestnuts work hard at this.

Melissa
Enjoying hickory nuts from my neighbor's trees. (He gave me a big bag of 
them.)