BAYFIELD'S RARE AND ENDANGERED AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREES ARE BLOOMING

LARGE NATIVE AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREE IN BLOOM...

HUGE OLD CHESTNUT ON 7TH AND MANYPENNY...

...WITH TRUNK CAVITY...

...NOTE CHARACTERISTIC RIDGED BARK

YOUNG CHESTNUT ON CORNER OF TENTH AND MANYPENNY...

...CHESTNUT FLOWERS...

...STAMINATE FLOWERS (FEMALE FLOWERS ARE VERY MINUTE)

Saturday, 7:30 AM.  68 degrees F on the back porch, 73 at the ferry dock. Wind SSW, light with a few moderate gusts.  The sky is clear with some haze over the water.  The humidity is down to 81% and the barometer is down from yesterday morning and is more or less steady now.  We may get some rain tonight and into tomorrow morning, which we need.

   We took Buddy to the vet yesterday afternoon and were informed that the stitches need to remain in place at least until Monday, necessitating keeping the "lampshade" over his head to keep him from licking the healing wound.  We were all disappointed, as this scenario is getting very old indeed, but we will be patient.

   We have reported before on Bayfield's rare,  remnant American Chestnut trees and shall do so again.  They are in full bloom at present, the earthy-smelling creamy white flowers adorning a number of trees, large and small.  A very large, double-trunked tree can be seen on the corner of 7th and Manypenny Ave., and a young tree, propagated and planted by former Bayfield volunteer forester Howard Larsen, is on the corner of Tenth and Manypenny.  The large tree pictured above is in a ravine on the grounds of Spring Hill B&B on Hwy. J just west of its junction with Hwy. 13, and is large enough to be seen in flower from the road.  There reportedly is a stand of chestnuts on the Apostle Highlands Golf Course further up the same ravine.

   American chestnuts, Castanea dentata, in the beech family (Fagaceae) were a dominant tree of the eastern deciduous forest until the invasive chestnut blight erupted a hundred years ago.  At that time one in four trees in that forest were American chestnut, and they rapidly became rare and endangered. The chestnut is valuable for its durable and beautiful wood, for its sweet, edible nuts and its ecological significance. The blight spreads readily by air and by vectors, including man, and at this point there is no known cure.  It is believed that the disease was inadvertently introduced from Asia, where the Chinese chestnut has developed natural immunity to it.  The disease causes bark cankers which kill the tree above the the canker.  Infected trees often sprout from the base of the tree so there are still chestnut trees to be found, but they are almost always diseased.  The Bayfield trees are not infected and that makes them an interesting and perhaps important rarity.  At this point I am not aware of anybody studying the Bayfield trees, or whether they are resistant to the disease or simply are isolated enough that they have never been infected.  I tried once to grow them from seed but was unsuccessful; I may try again, although I have never been good at plant propagation.

   Current efforts to develop resistant varieties of American chestnuts and also to combat the disease itself have been undertaken by the American Chestnut Society as well as various universities and other public entities, including the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, which monitors a large stand of the trees near LaCrosse, Wisconsin.  Bayfield is at the extreme northwestern edge of the original range of the American Chestnut, and the small number of trees here may have been a natural outlier population or may have been planted by homesteaders.  I doubt there is any way to accurately know their actual history.

   It occurs to me that a more intensive effort to propagate the Bayfield trees for use on boulevards, in parks and for ravine restoration would be an interesting and worthwhile project that might garner some support.