Chestnut

Categories: Fagaceae | Wood

This article is about the chestnut plant in the genus Castanea. The name horse-chestnut is commonly applied to several species in the unrelated genus Aesculus (family Sapindaceae). Also unrelated is the Chestnut oak (Quercus montana). Chestnut is also used as an adjective to describe a certain colour of coat in horses that resembles the colour of the chestnut nut. The chestnut is also a part of the horse. Chinkapin redirects here; for the oak tree, see Chinkapin oak. Information on the town, Chestnut, England can be found here.

Chestnuts (Castanea), including the chinkapins, are a genus of eight or nine species of trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the nuts produced by these trees. Most are large trees to 20-40 m tall, but some species (the chinkapins) are smaller, often shrubby. All are deciduous.

The leaves are simple, ovate or lanceolate, 10-30 cm long and 4-10 cm broad, with sharply pointed, widely-spaced teeth, with shallow rounded sinuses between. The flowers are catkins, produced in mid summer. The fruit is a spiny cupule 5-11 cm diameter, containing 2-7 nuts.

Castanea species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Brown-tail, Common Emerald, The Engrailed, Feathered Thorn, The Satellite and Yellow-tail.

The American Chestnut, formerly one of the dominant trees of the eastern United States, has been almost wiped out by a fungal disease, chestnut blight, Cryphonectria parasitica. The American chinkapins are also very susceptible to chestnut blight. The European and west Asian Sweet Chestnut is susceptible, but less so than the American, and the east Asian species are resistant. These resistant species, particularly Japanese Chestnut and Chinese Chestnut but also Seguin's Chestnut and Henry's Chestnut, have been used in breeding programs in the US to create hybrids with the American chestnut that are also disease resistant.

Uses

The nuts are most commonly eaten roasted or candied; the latter are often sold under the French name marrons glacés. To preserve chestnuts to eat through the winter, they must be made perfectly dry after they come out of their green husk; then put into a box or a barrel mixed with, and covered over by, fine and dry sand, three parts of sand to one part of chestnuts. Any maggots in any of the chestnuts will emerge and work up through the sand to get to the air without damaging other chestnuts. Chestnuts to be grown in the spring need to be kept in moist sand and chilled over the winter.

The wood is similar to oak wood in being decorative and very durable. Due to illness the wood of the American chestnut has almost disappeared from the market. It is difficult to obtain large size timber from the Sweet chestnut also, due to the high degree of splitting and warping when it dries. The wood of the Sweet chestnut is most used in small items where durability is important, such as fencing and wooden outdoor cladding ('shingles') for buildings. In Italy, it is also used to make barrels used for aging balsamic vinegar.

The bark was also a useful source of natural tannins, used for tanning leather before the introduction of synthetic tannins.

Ripe Sweet Chestnuts	Chestnuts inside their spiky capsule	Chestnuts can be found on the ground around trees	A Sweet Chestnut tree
A Sweet Chestnut tree

ca:castanya da:Kastanje de:Edelkastanie es:Castanea eo:Kaŝtanujo fr:Châtaignier io:Kastano nl:Kastanje ja:クリ pl:Kasztan sr:Кестен tr:Kestane