AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREES

AMERICAN CHESTNUTS ARE RIPE...

CHESTNUT BUR OPENING...

REVEALING (USUALLY) THREE  EDIBLE NUTS...

FLOWER CATKINS BLOOM IN EARLY TO MID JULY.

YOUNG AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREE ON TENTH AND MANYPENNY AVE. IN BLOOM LAST MAY

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  Wind variable and calm, with occasional light gusts.  The sky is overcast and it is raining lightly.  Humidity 92%, barometer mostly steady at 30.19".  Rainy weather is forecast through Tuesday, then clearing.

   The American chestnut, as most people know, was until around a century ago a major component of the temperate deciduous forest of northeastern North America east of the Mississippi River.  It grew in close association with sugar maple, beech, and red oak. It was a major timber and food species. The trees were so numerous that it was said that a squirrel could travel from chestnut tree to chestnut tree from the east coast to the Mississippi  River without interruption.
   The native population was decimated by an invasive Eurasian fungal disease that wiped out all but a few outlier populations of the species.  Those in and around Bayfield were either isolated enough to escape the disease or may have some immunity to it, I suspect the former.  In any case, a few of these trees have been propagated and planted around Bayfield, or have grown spontaneously, and the one pictured is a street tree located on the corner of Ninth Street and Mannypenny Ave.   

  The male flowers are long and filamentous, and are a creamy light green in color.  They have a very distinctive, pungent odor, akin to that of freshly turned earth. The female flower, which develops into the chestnut upon fertilization, is a minuscule catkin which subtends the male flower bract, or develops in the axils of nearby leaves.  The trees bloom in early to mid July.  The edible nuts are released from the opening burr in late September or October, either while the burr is still attached to the tree or when it falls to the ground, where they sprout and begin to grow immediately, if not eaten by squirrels.
   The tree on Ninth St.  is full of fruit now and well worth a look if you are in Bayfield. A mature tree, unfortunately much in decline, is located on Seventh St. and Manypenny Ave., and more large trees are located in a ravine on the Apostle Highlands Golf Course, and here and there throughout the area.

DON'T FORGET TO WATCH THE DEBATE