# American Chestnut (Castanea dentata)

> Once a dominant tree of the eastern forests, with sweet nuts for people and wildlife, now held to sprouts by a blight that kills its stems but not its roots.

Also called American sweet chestnut. Category: Chestnuts & Chinquapins. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-chestnut/

![American chestnut (Castanea dentata) sapling with long, saw-toothed leaves above the forest floor](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/american-chestnut-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli, CC BY 2.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASaw-Toothed_%288756195712%29.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Small tree
- Mature height: 15 to 30 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 4 to 8
- Grows wild in: Dry uplands, rich moist slopes and the Appalachians
- Native range: 26 states and the District of Columbia, north to Maine, south to Florida and west to Louisiana (Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia). Also recorded in 3 other states, outside its native range
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Dry
- Growth rate: Fast
- Traits: Rare, Edible, Wildlife value, Drought tolerant, Bears young
- Sold as: Saplings, Nuts

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

American chestnut was once a dominant tree of the eastern forests, up to a quarter or half of the canopy trees across its range. It was prized for rot-resistant timber and sweet nuts. Chestnut blight, a fungus from Asia first found in New York City in 1904, spread through its whole range by 1950 and had killed an estimated four billion trees by 1960. The roots survive and keep sending up sprouts, but the blight kills them again, usually before they bear much. NatureServe ranks the species vulnerable worldwide. NC State Extension, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Morton Arboretum all advise against planting it as an ornamental. The American Chestnut Foundation encourages growing wild-type trees to keep the species' genes alive for breeding. Plant it as a living link to the old forest, knowing the blight will likely cut it back.

## Size, growth and what to expect

American chestnut grows fast, and our growth estimator gives it about two and three quarter feet a year. The blight is present nearly everywhere in its range. There, expect a tree of 15 to 30 feet before the fungus kills it back. Once infected, a sapling rarely lasts a year. Before the blight it grew 50 to 75 feet tall, and old trees reached 100 feet or more.

It flowers in June and July with creamy catkins 5 to 10 inches long. Each spiny bur, 2 to 2½ inches across, holds two or three sweet nuts that fall in September and October. The nuts are smaller than Chinese chestnut's, and an Allegheny chinquapin bur holds only one. Turkeys, grouse, blue jays, squirrels, deer and black bears eat them.

Its range ran from southern Maine and Ontario to Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and west to Ohio and Indiana. It grew mostly on well-drained slopes and ridges, and in rich coves. It was also planted far beyond its native range, west to Iowa and Wisconsin.

## How to grow American Chestnut

American chestnut needs full sun to grow fast and to flower, though it will live in shade. Give it a well-drained, acid soil, sandy, gravelly or loamy. Keep it off clay and off wet or low ground, where Phytophthora root rot, mainly a southern disease, kills chestnuts outright. Set trees 30 feet apart, and keep each one 15 feet from a wall and 15 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole about twice as wide as the roots and no deeper, with the root collar level with the ground. Put the native soil back in, firm it around the roots, and keep a circle 3 feet across free of grass and weeds. The nuts die if they dry out, so keep them cool and damp until you sow. Sow them in fall an inch deep, on their sides, under hardware cloth. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for two to three months first.

Water regularly through the first year, then only in a severe drought. Voles, deer and other animals eat chestnut shoots and roots, so sink a short tube a few inches into the soil against voles and add a wire cage against deer. Weeds are among the worst killers of young chestnuts, so keep that circle clear.

Viable nuts take at least two trees to cross-pollinate, so plant two or more from different seed, within 300 feet of each other. An open-grown tree can bear from about its fourth year. Chestnut blight is the main trouble, and wild American chestnuts have no resistance to it. The fungus enters through bark wounds and girdles the stem, which dies above the canker. Chestnut weevils grow inside the nuts, and gathering every fallen nut in fall breaks their cycle.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station: The Silvics of Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh., American Chestnut, Fagaceae (Beech Family), Wang, Knapp, Clark and Mudder, GTR-SRS-173, 2013](https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/43054)
- [The American Chestnut Foundation: Growing Chestnuts](https://tacf.org/growing-chestnuts/)
- [The American Chestnut Foundation: FAQs](https://tacf.org/faqs/)
- [The American Chestnut Foundation: American Chestnut Seeds and Seedlings](https://tacf.org/american-chestnut-seeds-and-seedlings/)
- [The American Chestnut Foundation: American Chestnut History](https://tacf.org/history-american-chestnut/)
- [The Journal of the American Chestnut Foundation 26(2), March/April 2012, Introduction to Chestnut Blight, Huckabee Smith](https://tacf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Blight-Resistance.pdf)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Castanea dentata](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/castanea-dentata/)
- [Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Castanea dentata](https://plantfinder.mobot.org/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a387)
- [The Morton Arboretum: American chestnut](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/trees-and-plants/american-chestnut/)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Castanea dentata](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233500325)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Castanea dentata](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CADE12)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: American chestnut](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=21)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Castanea chapter](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Castanea.pdf)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Castanea dentata](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.153295/Castanea_dentata)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Castanea dentata, from Bean](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/castanea/castanea-dentata/)
- [Maryland Natural Heritage Program list, March 2021](https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Documents/rte_Plant_List.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Chinese chestnut: size, growth rate, bark, and how it differs from the American chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/chinese-chestnut/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for heavy clay: which take it wet, which take it dry, and how to plant them](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-and-shrubs-for-heavy-clay/index.html.md)
- [Native trees for insects: the beetles, wasps, cicadas and fireflies that everything else eats](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-insects/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on American Chestnut, add ?species=american-chestnut with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=american-chestnut&zone=4&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for American Chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=american-chestnut): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=american-chestnut
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how American Chestnut is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=american-chestnut
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what American Chestnut needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=american-chestnut:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months American Chestnut flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.