American Chestnut: Re-Examining the Historical Attributes of a Lost Tree

Abstract

American chestnut (Castanea dentate) has been described as a towering giant dominating eastern deciduous forests. To determine whether this portrayal was accurate, we compared pre- and postblight descriptions of American chestnut. Preblight sources most frequently reported maximum height of mature American chestnut as 100 ft whereas postblight descriptions most frequently report a maximum height of 120 ft. In preblight sources, the maximum diameter reported for American chestnut was 13 ft, and in postblight sources 17 ft was regularly identified as the maximum diameter. We hypothesize that confusion between tree circumference and diameter and the inability to correct false descriptions with measurements has resulted in an increase in the reported maximum size of American chestnut in postblight sources.