AMERICAN CHESTNUT IS BLOOMING

AMERICAN CHESTNUTS RIPEN IN LATE SEPTEMBER...

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 NOW

LARGE NATIVE AMERICAN CHESTNUT TREE IN BLOOM...

HUGE OLD CHESTNUT ON 7TH AND MANYPENNY...

...WITH TRUNK CAVITY...

NOTE THE RIGGED BARK

CHESTNUT LEAF FALL COLOR; NOTE THE SHARP, CURVED TEETH

Wednesday, 8:00 AM. 67 degrees F at the ferry dock, 65 on the back porch.  Wind variable and mostly calm, with occasional very light gusts.  The sky is clear, the humidity 72%.  The barometer has begun a gentle decline, now at 30.12" of mercury.  The forecast is for clear skies and highs in the mid-70's today and tomorrow, then temperatures dropping into the 60's with cloudy skies and chances of rain and thunderstorms into next week.  It is a very quiet, pleasant morning.

   The American chestnut, Castanea dentata, in the Beech Family (Fagaceae) , 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 for both animals and man. 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 ever touching the ground. Upon the demise of the American Chestnut other species assumed its ecological role, even if imperfectly; nature always compensates for disasters, and none of its components are irreplaceable.
   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 of the chestnut 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, which must have once filled the forest. 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  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 at the southeast end of the Apostle Highlands Golf Course, and here and there throughout the area.

UNDER THE SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE
Nursery Rhyme

Underneath the spreading chestnut tree,
There we sit both you and me,
Oh how happy we can be,
‘Neath the spreading chestnut tree.

I'm as happy as can be,
With my banjo on my knee,
Singing songs just you and me,
I'm as happy as can be.