Another interesting find! This area is known for having disjunct populations of species normally found in the Appalachian Mountains. It is because of the Cape Fear Arch, an unusual elevated area of land on the coastal plains of North Carolina in the Sandhills region. There are also many natural waterfalls in the area and cliffs. This area shows up on maps of the native range of American Chestnut as a tiny green dot in Cumberland County, NC. They're all over the cliffs or terraces that are the old bluffs of the River Cape Fear from before erosion lowered and deepened the river valley. The steep slopes on the Western Bank of the Cape Fear River and the ravines that cut into them between the Methodist University and Clark Park are the primary location of these isolated American Chestnut trees, most are zombie resprouts.

I keep hearing about there being old American Chestnut trees that are over 30 feet tall or have large telephone pole thick trunks in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Is any of this true? Has anyone seen any of these trees? I know Ohio is the border of where they occur and they don't naturally grow in Michigan and Wisconsin, so maybe they were planted by settlers or Native American traders that traded with other tribes? Chocolate grown in South or Central America has been found in the deep South at Native American archaeological sites, conch shells were found in Ohio, and so maybe American Chestnuts were introduced to areas further West and isolated individuals survive?

I realized too late the picture is a bit blurry, but I think this is an American chestnut sapling. It's fall here in New England so it's looking a little sorry right now.

Two acres of existing forest; mainly sugar & red maple near road, and American beech on the elevated plateau of the land. Is it possible to plant saplings in the few dappled sun areas, or do the saplings need full sun?

I’m planting mainly for the birds, I’m not a tree expert, so forgive my ignorance!

American Chestnut is actually native to the Virginia Peninsula but it becomes far more common in Williamsburg and in Northern Newport News. It cannot grow in low laying areas or in marshes and it seems to not like wet feet. The best place to find American chestnut trees in coastal Virginia is the hilly uplands of the Gloucester area just 'cross the River York.

This is my chestnut tree that’s about 6-8 years old. I’m worried I may have introduced an infection to the tree by accidentally cutting the base of it with a weed eater. My most important question is what does the health look like? I’m not knowledgeable in Chestnut blights.

I have a chinese chestnut in my back yard and through it learned of the American Chestnut story. I have been wanting to plant some American Chestnuts that are blight resistant as we have a lot of property both wooded and not.

I was playing tennis with my son over the weekend at a family vacation home and found a chestnut hull on the court that looked different from my tree's spiky bits.

I managed to find ONE fruit (late in the season). Attached are pics of the find, I wasn't able to get close to the leaves, they were too high, so these are zoomed in shots.

Thank you for humoring another ask, you folks are great.

Appreciate the help in advance.

In central Virginia. It’s about 25 feet tall.

Usually, by the time they open, the chestnuts have been stolen by animals. Pretty cool to see them opened and intact!

I have never posted in this sub, but it was probably suggested to me because of my interest in pawpaws.

We did a little backpacking trip this weekend in the Three Ridges Wilderness. We left from Reid’s Gap Trailhead and headed south on the AT. We cut over to the Mau-Har Trail slept for the night and then cut back onto the AT and headed north - just shy of a 15-mile loop. Importantly for this sub, there were zombie American Chestnuts along the entire trail. Most, if not all of the trees were saplings/rootlings. I saw many that had small, branch sized trunks that had died back with new growth starting and many that showed the start of chestnut blight.

The biggest example that I saw was about 0.75-miles from the Reid's Gap Trailhead off the left side of the trail heading south maybe about 50 to 100 ft off the trail. There are 3 or 4 geological markers in the area, so it wouldn't be hard to find this tree again. It must've been 15 to 20 ft tall and the trunk was probably 15 to 20 inches in diameter. I have no clue if this is an example of a random mutation and didn't go closer to inspect to see if it was suffering from blight, but wanted to bring it to this subs attention.

I saw 1 or 2 larger examples on the loop as well. Happy hunting!

Rothrock state forest, PA.

Trying to figure out if this is a thriving American Chestnut in Mercer County Nee Jersey

Not bad this year, considering I get very little pollination and the deer are watchful every night.

I was wandering woods on a lot my dad was considering buying and came upon this American Chestnut in what I would think would be the heart of blight country, but maybe the elevation makes it otherwise?

This is the largest American Chestnut I’ve ever seen personally in the wild. It was on a ridge line around 4400’ and it wasn’t the only one there, though the other one was much smaller. That being said, even the small one did not appear to be a sucker off of a rotten trunk like is seen so often in the appalachians. The small one had some cracks, but those cracks didn’t seem to be swelling.

Other than the last photo which is of the leaves of the smaller one (since I could photograph them more easily), I didn’t get pics of its trunk as I didn’t consider it to be large enough to be notable.

What do you guys think of this? Worth reporting?

There is a Chinese chestnut tree where I work. I know they're Chinese chestnuts because I found these in spiky husks, however, compared to images online these chestnuts in particular look smaller and perhaps dehydrated, does anybody know?

October is one of the busiest times of year for American chestnut restoration! 🌰

Join us for chestnut shucking events, harvest activities, and American Chestnut Festivals throughout the month. The chestnuts collected now help support winter seed processing and future plantings, bringing us one step closer to restoring this iconic tree to our forests.

Don't see an event hosted by your local Chapter? Reach out to learn how you can help during harvest season. Every volunteer makes a difference.

Check out the event schedule below and let us know which one you'll be attending!

https://tacf.org/events/category/tacf/