Our Park has three old Chinese Chestnut trees just a few yards inside our park on the right at the beginning of the stone wall. These trees are in the yard of the old farm house on the property. During our construction we have exercised caution to prevent damage to these trees. They produce a large amount of chestnuts each year.
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CHINESE CHESTNUT
Castanea mollissima Fagaceae |
Leaves are simple, alternate, deciduous, elliptical to obovate, with
bristle-tipped teeth and a hairy underside. Twigs are hairy with
white-brown hairy buds. Bark is gray-brown and ridged. Fruit is a
brown, edible nut enclosed in a spiny bur. Chinese chestnut is from Asia and
planted in the eastern U.S. Some mistake this tree for American chestnut but
the leaves of Chinese chestnut are more oval in shape, thicker
and more leathery than American chestnut leaves and hairy below. Chinese chestnut
leaves grown in the sun have a whitish cast on the back of the
leaf, and the stems are gray with large white "bumps" or
lenticels on them.
