Mockernut hickory is a large, true hickory with a dense crown. This species occasionally grows to about 30 m (98 ft) tall and 91 cm (36 in) in diameter at breast height (dbh), but heights and diameters usually range from about 15 and 46 to 61 cm (5.9 and 18.1 to 24.0 in), respectively.
The relation of height to age is:
The current annual growth of mockernut hickory on dry sites is estimated at about 1.0 m³/ha (15 ft³/acre). In fully stocked stands on moderately fertile soil2.1 m³ /ha (30 ft³ /acre) is estimated, though annual growth rates of 3.1 m³/ha (44 ft³/acre) were reported in Ohio (26). Greenwood and bark weights for commercial-size mockernut trees from mixed hardwoods in Georgia are available for total tree and saw-log stems to a 4-inch top for trees 5 to 22 inches d.b.h..
Available growth data and other research information are summarized for hickory species, not for individual species. Trimble compared growth rates of various Appalachian hardwoods including a hickory species category dominant-codominant hickory trees 38 to 51 cm (15 to 20 in) in dbh on good oak sites grew slowly compared to northern red oak, yellow-poplar, black cherry (Prunus serotina), and sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Hickories were in the white oak, sweet birch (Betula lenta), and American beech (Fagus grandifolia) growth-rate category. Dominant-codominant hickory trees grew about 3 mm (0.12 in) dbh per year compared to 5 mm (0.20 in) for the moderate-growth species (black cherry) and 6 mm (0.24 in) for the faster-growing species (yellow-poplar and red oak). Equations are available for predicting merchantable gross volumes from hickory stump diameters in Ohio. Also, procedures are described for predicting diameters and heights and for developing volume tables to any merchantable top diameter for hickory species in southern Illinois and West Virginia. Generally, epicormic branching is not a problem with hickory species, but a few branches do occur.


True hickories such as mockernut develop a long taproot with few laterals. Early root growth is primarily into the taproot, which typically reaches a depth of 30 to 91 cm (12 to 36 in) during the first year. Small laterals originate along the taproot, but many die back during the fall. During the second year, the taproot may reach a depth of 122 cm (48 in), and the laterals grow rapidly. After 5 years, the root system attains its maximum depth, and the horizontal spread of the roots is about double that of the crown. By age 10, the height is four times the depth of the taproot.


At certain times during its life, mockernut hickory may be variously classified as tolerant to intolerant. Overall it is classified as intolerant of shade. It recovers rapidly from suppression and is probably a climax species on moist sites.
Silvicultural practices for managing the oak-hickory type have been summarized. Establishing the seedling origin of hickory trees is difficult because of seed predators. Although infrequent bumper seed crops usually provide some seedlings, seedling survival is poor under a dense canopy. Because of prolific sprouting ability, hickory reproduction can survive browsing, breakage, drought, and fire. Top dieback and resprouting may occur several times, each successive shoot reaching a larger size and developing a stronger root system than its predecessors. By this process, hickory reproduction gradually accumulates and grows under moderately dense canopies, especially on sites dry enough to restrict reproduction of more tolerant, but more fire or drought-sensitive species.
Wherever adequate hickory advance reproduction occurs, clearcutting results in new sapling stands containing some hickories. Reproduction is difficult to attain if advance hickory regeneration is inadequate, though; then clearcutting will eliminate hickories except for stump sprouts. In theory, light thinnings or shelterwood cuts can be used to create advance hickory regeneration, but this has not been demonstrated.


Mockernut hickory is extremely sensitive to fire because of the low insulating capacity of the hard, flinty bark. It is not subject to severe loss from disease. The main fungus of hickory is Poria spiculosa, a trunk rot. This fungus kills the bark, which produces a canker, causes heart rot and decay, and can seriously degrade the tree. Mineral streaks and sapsucker-induced streaks also degrade the lumber. In general, the hard, strong, and durable wood of hickories makes them relatively resistant to decay fungi. Most fungi cause little, if any, decay in small, young trees.
Common foliage diseases include leaf mildew and witches' broom (Microstroma juglandis), leaf blotch (Mycosphaerella dendroides), and pecan scab (Cladosporium effusum). Mockernut hickory is host to anthracnose (Gnomonia caryae).
Nuts of all hickory species are susceptible to attack by the hickory nut weevil (Curculio caryae). Another weevil (Conotrachelus aratus) attacks young shoots and leaf petioles. The Curculio species are the most damaging and can destroy 65% of the hickory nut crop. Hickory shuckworms also damage nuts.
The bark beetle (Scolytus quadrispinosus) attacks mockernut hickory, especially in drought years and where hickory species are growing rapidly. The hickory spiral borer (Argilus arcuatus torquatus) and the pecan carpenterworm (Cossula magnifica) are also serious insect enemies of mockernut. The hickory bark beetle probably destroys more sawtimber-size mockernut trees than any other insect. The hickory spiral borer kills many seedlings and young trees, and the pecan carpenterworm degrades both trees and logs. The twig girdler (Oncideres cingulata) attacks both small and large trees; it seriously deforms trees by sawing branches. Sometimes, these girdlers cut hickory seedlings near ground level.
Two casebearers (Acrobasis caryivorella and A. juglandis) feed on buds and leaves; later, they bore into succulent hickory shoots. Larvae of A. caryivorella may destroy entire nut sets. The living-hickory borer (Goes pulcher) feeds on hickory boles and branches throughout the East. Borers commonly found on dying or dead hickory trees or cut logs include:
Banded hickory borer (Knulliana cincta)
Long-horned beetle (Saperda discoidea)
Apple twig borer (Amphicerus bicaudatus)
Flatheaded ambrosia beetle (Platypus compositus)
Redheaded ash borer (Neoclytus acuminatus)
False powderpost beetle (Scobicia bidentata)
Severe damage to hickory lumber and manufactured hickory products is caused by powderpost beetles (Lyctus spp. and Polycanon stoutii). Gall insects (Caryomyia spp.) commonly infest leaves. The fruit-tree leafroller (Archips argyrospila) and the hickory leafroller (Argyrotaenia juglandana) are the most common leaf feeders. The giant bark aphid (Longistigma caryae) is common on hickory bark. This aphid usually feeds on twigs and can cause branch mortality. The European fruit lecanium (Parthnolecanium corni) is common on hickories.
Mockernut is not easily injured by ice glaze or snow, but young seedlings are very susceptible to frost damage. Many birds and animals feed on the nuts of mockernut hickory. This feeding combined with insect and disease problems eliminates the annual nut production, except during bumper seed crop years.


Mockernuts are preferred mast for wildlife, particularly squirrels, which eat green nuts. Black bears, foxes, rabbits, beavers, and white-footed mice feed on the nuts, and sometimes the bark. The white-tailed deer browse on foliage and twigs and also feed on nuts. Hickory nuts are a minor source of food for ducks, quail, and turkey.
Mockernut hickory nuts are consumed by many species of birds and other animals, including wood duck, red-bellied woodpecker, red fox, squirrels, beaver, eastern cottontail, eastern chipmunk, turkey, white-tailed deer, white-footed mice, and others. Many insect pests eat hickory leaves and bark. Mockernut hickories also provide cavities for animals to live in, such as woodpeckers, black rat snakes, raccoons, Carolina chickadees, and more. They are also good nesting trees, providing cover for birds with their thick foliage. Animals help disperse seeds so that new hickories can grow elsewhere. Chipmunks, squirrels, and birds do this best. Some fungi grow on mockernut hickory roots, sharing nutrients from the soil.
True hickories provide a large portion of the high-grade hickory used by industry. Mockernut is used for lumber, pulpwood, charcoal, and other fuelwood products. Hickory species are preferred species for fuelwood consumption. Mockernut has the second-highest heating value among the species of hickories. It can be used for veneer, but the low supply of logs of veneer quality is a limiting factor.
Mockernut hickory is used for tool handles requiring high shock resistance. It is used for ladder rungs, athletic goods, agricultural implements, dowels, gymnasium apparatus, poles, shafts, well pumps, and furniture. Lower-grade lumber is used for pallets, blocking, etc. Hickory sawdust, chips, and some solid wood are often used by packing companies to smoke meats; mockernut is the preferred wood for smoking hams. Though mockernut kernels are edible, they are rarely eaten by humans because of their size and because they are eaten by squirrels and other wildlife.


Mockernut is a 64-chromosome species, so rarely crosses with 32-chromosome species such as pecan or shellbark hickory. No published information exists concerning population or other genetic studies of this species.  Efforts are currently underway to map the genome of pecan in a collaborative effort.  The genome map at some point may expand to cover other hickory species.
Hickories are noted for their variability, with many natural hybrids known among North American Carya species. Hickories usually can be crossed successfully within the genus. Geneticists recognize that mockernut hickory hybridizes naturally with C. illinoensis (Carya x schneckii Sarg.) and C. ovata (Carya x collina Laughlin).  Mockernut readily hybridizes with tetraploid C. texana.  Hybrids generally are shy nut producers or produce nuts that are not filled with a kernel.  Numerous exceptions to this rule are known.


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 This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document: "http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/table_of_contents.shtm".
(Silvics of North America; volume 2: Hardwoods, United States Department of
Agriculture Forest Service Agriculture Handbook 654, 1990).


Cascabela thevetia (syn: Thevetia peruviana) is a poisonous plant native throughout Mexico and in Central America, and cultivated widely as an ornamental. It is a relative of Nerium oleander, giving it a common name yellow oleander, and is also called lucky nut in the West Indies.


'Cascabel', 'cascavel' or 'cascabela' is Spanish for a small bell, a snake's rattle or a rattlesnake itself. The allusion may also be to the plant's toxicity comparable to the venom of a rattlesnake. The latin specific name thevetia commemorates André de Thevet (1516-1590), a French Franciscan priest and explorer, who explored Brazil and Guiana (where the plant is known as chapéu-de-napoleão, ie, Napoleon's hat).


Cascabela thevetia is an evergreen tropical shrub or small tree. Its leaves are willow-like, linear-lanceolate, and glossy green in color. They are covered in waxy coating to reduce water loss (typical of oleanders). Its stem is green turning silver/gray as it ages. Flowers bloom from summer to fall. The long funnel-shaped sometimes-fragrant yellow (less commonly apricot, sometimes white) flowers are in few-flowered terminal clusters. Its fruit is deep red-black in color encasing a large seed that bears some resemblance to a 'Chinese lucky nut.'
Cascabela thevetia is commonly known as Kaneir or Kaner (कनेर) in Hindi language in India. It is effectively drought resistant and tolerant to high temperatures, hence found in various states of India like Andhra, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh , Odisha and Assam where semi arid climate is prevalent.


Its bright yellow flowers are used for religious purposes in India. The tree is native to Mexico and thus direct references to Hindu culture are new.


All parts of the C. thevetia plant are toxic to most vertebrates as they contain cardiac glycosides. Many cases of intentional and accidental poisoning of humans are known.
The main toxins are the cardenolides called thevetin A and thevetin B; others include peruvoside, neriifolin, thevetoxin and ruvoside. These cardenolides are not destroyed by drying or heating and they are very similar to digoxin from Digitalis purpurea. They produce gastric and cardiotoxic effects. Antidotes for treatment include atropine and digoxin immune fabs (antibodies) and treatment may include oral administration of activated charcoal. Ovine polyclonal anti-digitoxin Fab fragment antibody (DigiTAb; Therapeutic Antibodies Inc.) can be used to treat T. peruviana poisoning, but for many countries the cost is prohibitive.
A few bird species are however known to feed on them without any ill effects. These include the sunbirds, Asian koel, red-whiskered bulbul, white-browed bulbul, red-vented bulbul, brahminy myna, common myna and common grey hornbill.
In South India and in Sri Lanka swallowing the seeds of Thevetia peruviana (Kaneru කණේරු (Sinhala), Manjal arali (Tamil)) is one of the preferred methods for suicides in villages where they are grown in abundance.
Extracts from C. thevetia are reported to possess antispermatogenic activity in rats.


Cultivation
Cascabela thevetia is cultivated as an ornamental plant, and planted as large flowering shrub or small ornamental tree standards in gardens and parks in temperate climates. In frost prone areas it is container plant, in the winter season brought inside a greenhouse or as a house plant. It tolerates most soils and is drought tolerant.
Biological pest control
The plant's toxins have tested in experiments for uses in biological pest control.  T. peruviana seed oil was used to make a 'paint' with antifungal, antibacterial and anti-termite properties.


Cassia fistula, commonly known as golden shower, purging cassia, Indian laburnum, or pudding-pipe tree, is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. The species is native to the Indian subcontinent and adjacent regions of Southeast Asia, from southern Pakistan through India and Sri Lanka to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. It is a popular ornamental plant and is also used in herbal medicine.


The golden shower tree is a medium-sized tree, growing to 10–20 m (33–66 ft) tall with fast growth. The leaves are deciduous, 15–60 cm (6–24 in) long, and pinnate with three to eight pairs of leaflets, each leaflet 7–21 cm (3–8 in) long and 4–9 cm (1+1⁄2–3+1⁄2 in) broad. The flowers are produced in pendulous racemes 20–40 cm (8–16 in) long, each flower 4–7 cm (1+5⁄8–2+3⁄4 in) diameter with five yellow petals of equal size and shape. The fruit is a legume, 30–60 cm (12–24 in) long and 1.5–2.5 cm (9⁄16–1 in) broad, with a pungent odor and containing several seeds. The tree has strong and very durable wood, and has been used to construct "Ehela Kanuwa", a site at Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka, which is made of C. fistula (ahala, ehela, or aehaela, ඇහැල in Sinhala ) heartwood. The golden shower tree is not a nitrogen fixer.


Cassia fistula is widely grown as an ornamental plant in tropical and subtropical areas. It blooms in late spring/earlysummer in hot, dry weather. Flowering is profuse, with trees being covered with yellow flowers, many times with almost no leaf being seen. It grows well in dry climates. Growth for this tree is best in full sun on well-drained soil; it is relatively drought-tolerant and slightly salt-tolerant. It will tolerate light brief frost, but can get damaged if the cold persists. It can be subject to mildew or leaf spot, especially during the second half of the growing season. The tree blooms better with pronounced differences between summer and winter temperatures.


Various species of bees and butterflies are known to be pollinators of C. fistula flowers, especially carpenter bees (Xylocopa sp.). In 1911, Robert Scott Troup conducted an experiment to determine how the seeds of C. fistula are dispersed. He found that golden jackals feed on the fruits and help in seed dispersal.


In India, flowers of the golden shower tree are sometimes eaten by people. The leaves have also been used to supplement the diets of cattle, sheep, and goats fed with low-quality forages.


In Ayurvedic medicine, the golden shower tree is known as aragvadha, meaning "disease killer".  The fruit pulp is considered a purgative, and self-medication or any use without medical supervision is strongly advised against in Ayurvedic texts.  Though it has been used in herbalism for millennia, little research has been conducted in modern times, although it is an ingredient in some mass-produced herbal laxatives. When used as such, it is known as "cassia pods".
In India, a cathartic made from the pulp is sometimes added to tobacco.
A paste of the flowers is used as an ointment for pimples.


Cassia fistula is both the national tree and national flower of Thailand – in Thai ratchaphruek (Thai: ราชพฤกษ์) and the blossoms commonly referred to as dok khun (Thai: ดอกคูน). Its yellow flowers symbolize Thai royalty. A 2006–2007 flower festival, the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek, was named after the tree. Cassia fistula is also featured on a 2003 joint Canadian-Thai design for a 48-cent stamp, part of a series featuring national emblems.
The Indian laburnum is the state flower of Kerala. The flowers are of ritual importance in the Vishu festival of  Kerala. The tree has been depicted on a 20-rupee stamp. The tree is frequently cultivated in Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka where the Sinhala name is Ehela, ඇහැල.
In Laos, its blooming flowers known locally as dok khoun are associated with the Lao New Year. People use the flowers as offerings at the temple and also hang them in their homes for the New Year in belief that the flowers will bring happiness and good luck to the households.


The Mexican cacique or yellow-winged cacique (Cassiculus melanicterus) is a species of cacique in the family Icteridae. It is found only on the west coast of Mexico and the northernmost edge of Guatemala.  It is monotypic in its own genus.
Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and heavily degraded former forest.
The genus Cassiculus was introduced by the English ornithologist William John Swainson in 1827.


Cassiope mertensiana is a species of flowering plant known by the common names western moss heather and white mountain heather.
This heather is native to subalpine areas of western North America, from Alaska to the mountains of California. It is a small, branching shrub which forms patches along the ground and in rocky crevices.


Cassiope mertensiana has short, erect, snakelike stems that are covered in tiny leathery scalelike leaves only a few millimeters long. From between the layers of scale leaves emerge reddish  pedicels each bearing a petite, hanging, down-facing, bell-shaped flower. The bractlets are red and the contrasting flower is white.
Although the shrub tends to grow in areas where there is a lot of accumulation of snow, adequate rain precipitation is needed for the continued growth of Cassiope Mertensiana. The shrub must be exposed to enough sunlight and warmer conditions for proper growth during the growing season.


Cassiope tetragona (common names include Arctic bell-heather, white Arctic mountain heather and Arctic white heather) is a plant native to the high Arctic and northern Norway, where it is found widely.
Growing to 10–20 cm in height, it is a strongly branched dwarf shrub. The leaves are grooved, evergreen, and scale-like in four rows. Pedicels are long and arched. The plant bears bell-shaped, solitary flowers usually with white and pink lobes and pink anthers. The flower stalks and sepals are red, but the petals may also be yellowish-white. The anthers can also be brownish-yellow and flower stalks and sepals yellowish-green.
It grows on ridges and heaths, often in abundance and forming a distinctive and attractive plant community.
In Greenland, indigenous peoples use the plant as important source of fuel. Because of high resin content, it burns even when wet.
The plant can also be used in cooking.  Canadian chef Louis Charest used arctic heather as a smoked herb for the 2016 Three Amigos Summit state dinner.


Castalius rosimon, the common Pierrot, is a small butterfly found in India that belongs to the lycaenids, or blues family.


The species is found in Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar; Tenasserim, extending into the Malayan subregion. In the Indonesian archipelago the butterfly occurs in north-eastern Sumatra, Kalimantan, eastern Java, Bali, Bangka, Timor, Wetar, Kissar, Sumbawa and Sulawesi.
In India the butterfly is found south of the outer ranges of the Himalayas, except in desert tracts; east India; the north-west Himalayas; Assam. The butterfly is also found in the Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands.


The upperside of its wings is mainly white. Forewing has the costa, apex and termen edged with black, the edging much broader on apex and termen; base outwards for a short distance more or less densely overlaid. with metallic blue scales which cover and make indistinct a large basal outwardly clavate (club-shaped) black spot; a transverse black oval spot on the discocellulars touching the black edging on the costa; an oblique irregular line of four quadrate black spots beyond, the upper spot coalesced with the black on the costal border, the next spot below shifted outwards out of line, touching, as does also the lowest spot, the terminal black edging; posterior to this is a quadrate black spot in the apical half of interspace 2, and placed obliquely outwards from 1b coalescent with the terminal black border, another similar spot in interspace 1. Individuals of this species have been reported to exhibit seasonal colour variations and melanic aberrations that shows  a similar pigmentation pattern.
Hindwing: three basal black somewhat coalescent spots overlaid with metallic blue scaling; the costal margin above the subcostal vein and vein 7 black; this colour filling also the base of interspace 6, where in some specimens it is divided into a basal portion with a spot beyond; a postdiscal curved transverse black band followed by a subterminal transverse series of black spots, each spot edged inwardly and outwardly by very slender lunules of the white ground colour; on the inner side of the postdiscal band posteriorly is a broken line of four black generally coalescent spots two and two, the two upper often touching the postdiscal band.
Underside primarily white. Forewing has a long oblique black band from base outwards to the costa; below it and obliquely placed an irregular black somewhat conical mark; following these are two outwardly oblique, medially interrupted, black macular bands; the inner of the two extended from costa along the discocellulars, is then widely interrupted below its posterior portion that is formed of two elongate coalescent spots and touches the inner subterminal transverse line of elongate spots just above the tornus; the outer, obliquely placed line is subapical and medially broken, the middle portion consisting of a quadrate spot is shifted outwards; finally, two parallel subterminal transverse series of black elongate spots, the inner series of broad, more or less rectangular spots, the outer series of more linear spots, the latter coalescent anteriorly with a slender anteciliary black line.
Hindwing: a transverse basal black band, with an elongate black spot below it on the dorsum; a transverse subbasal line of four well-separated black spots; a transverse, oval, discocellular black spot and obliquely above it three subcostal similar spots, the inner two coalescent; postdiscal and terminal markings consist, the former of four black posterior spots two and two, each pair coalescent and placed en echelon, the latter of a transverse double series of subterminal black spots and an anteciliary black line; the upper portion of the postdiscal markings touches the inner subterminal line. Cilia of both forewings and hindwings white alternated with black at the apices of the veins; filamentous short tail to the hindwing black tipped with white.
Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen black, the shafts of the antennae ringed with white, the head between the eyes and behind them white; beneath: the palpi, thorax and abdomen white, the last barred broadly with white on the sides.


Similar to the male but with the black markings on the upper and undersides broader.


"Feeds on Zizyphus jujuba and is of a rough texture as if shagreened all over. It is of the usual woodlouse form, much flattened towards the anal segment which is very broad; head concealed; colour bright green with a double, dorsal, yellow line and the sides powdered with small yellow spots." (Davidson, Bell and Aitken)


"Of the usual Castalius form but narrow and slightly flattened. It is intensely glossy as if covered with gum. It varies in colour, being sometimes black, at others green with inconstant black markings." (Davidson, Bell & Aitken)


The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) is a large, fast-growing deciduous tree of the beech family native to eastern North America. As is true of all species in genus Castanea, the American chestnut produces burred fruit with edible nuts. The American chestnut was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range and was considered the finest chestnut tree in the world.
The species was devastated by chestnut blight, a fungal disease that came from Chinese chestnut trees introduced into North America from East Asia. It is estimated that between 3 and 4 billion American chestnut trees were destroyed in the first half of the 20th century by chestnut blight after the blight's initial discovery in North America in 1904. Very few mature specimens of the tree exist within its historical range, although many small shoots of the former live trees remain. There are hundreds of large (2 to 5 ft diameter) American chestnuts outside its historical range, some in areas where less virulent strains of the pathogen are more common, such as the 600 to 800 large trees in Northern Michigan. The species is listed as endangered in the United States and Canada. American chestnuts are also susceptible to ink disease, particularly in the southern part of its native range; this likely contributed to the devastation of the species.
Several groups are attempting to create blight-resistant American chestnuts. Scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry created the Darling 58 cultivar of American chestnut by inserting the oxalate oxidase gene from wheat into the genome of an American chestnut. When expressed in the vascular cambium of the Darling 58 cultivar, the oxalate oxidase enzyme degrades the oxalic acid produced by the chestnut blight, reducing damage to the vascular cambium and resisting girdling of the trunk. As of 2021, the researchers who developed this cultivar are working towards applying for government permission to make these trees available to the public. If approved, these chestnut trees would be the first genetically modified forest trees released into the wild in the United States. Alternate approaches to developing a blight-resistant cultivar include cross-breeding among partially blight-resistant American chestnuts or crossbreeding with the moderately blight-resistant Chinese chestnut, then backcrossing with the American Chestnut, with the goal of retaining most of its genes.


Castanea dentata is a rapidly–growing, large, deciduous hardwood tree. Pre-blight sources give a maximum height of 100 feet (30 m), and a maximum circumference of 13 feet (4.0 m). (Post-blight sources erroneously report a greater maximum size of the species compared with pre-blight). It is considerably larger than the closely–related Allegheny Chinquipin Castanea pumila. There are several other chestnut species, such as the European sweet chestnut (C. sativa), Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima), and Japanese chestnut (C. crenata). Castanea dentata can be distinguished by a few morphological traits, such as petiole length, nut size and number of nuts per burr, leaf shape, and leaf size, with leaves being 14–20 cm (5.5–8 in) long and 7–10 cm (3–4 in) broad—slightly shorter and broader than the sweet chestnut.  It has larger and more widely spaced saw-teeth on the edges of its leaves, as indicated by the scientific name dentata, Latin for "toothed".
Sweet chestnut was introduced in the United States by Thomas Jefferson in 1773. The sweet chestnut has hairy twig tips in contrast to the hairless twigs of the American chestnut. This species has been the chief source of commercial chestnuts in the United States. Japanese chestnut was inadvertently introduced into the United States by Thomas Hogg in 1876 and planted on the property of S.B. Parsons in Flushing, New York. The Japanese chestnut has narrow leaves, smaller than either American chestnut or sweet chestnut, with small, sharply-pointed teeth and many hairs on the underside of the leaf and is the most blight-resistant species.
The chestnut is monoecious, and usually protandrous producing many small, pale green (nearly white) male flowers found tightly occurring along 6 to 8 inch long catkins. The female parts are found near the base of the catkins (near twig) and appear in late spring to early summer. Like all members of the family Fagaceae, American chestnut is self-incompatible and requires two trees for pollination, which can be with other members of the Castanea genus. The pollen of the American chestnut is considered a mild allergen.
The American chestnut is a prolific bearer of nuts, with inflorescence and nut production in the wild beginning when a tree is 8 to 10 years old. American chestnut burrs often open while still attached to the tree, around the time of the first frost in autumn, with the nuts then falling to the ground. American chestnut typically have three nuts enclosed in a spiny, green burr, each lined in tan velvet. In contrast, the Allegheny Chinquipin produces but one nut per burr.


Chestnuts are in the Fagaceae family along with beech and oak. Chestnuts are not closely related to the horse-chestnut, which is in the family Sapindaceae. Phylogenetic analysis indicates a westward migration of extant Castanea species from Asia to Europe to North America, with the American Chestnut more closely related to the Allegheny Chinquipin (Castanea pumila v. pumila) than to European or Asian clades. The genomic range of chestnuts can be roughly divided into a clinal pattern of northeast, central, and southwest populations, with southwest populations showing greatest diversity, reflecting an evolutionary bottleneck likely due to Quaternary glaciation. Two lineages of American chestnut have been identified, one a hybrid between the American chestnut and the Allegheny Chinquipin from the southern Appalachians. The other lineage of American Chestnut shows a gradual loss of genetic diversity along a Northward vector, indicating possible expansion of range following the most recent Glacial Maximum during the Wisconsin glaciation. Ozark chinkapin, which is typically considered either a distinct species (C. ozarkensis) or a subspecies of the Allegheny chinkapin (C. pumila subsp. ozarkensis), may be ancestral to both the American chestnut and the Allegheny chinkapin. A natural hybrid of C. dentata and C. pumila has been named Castanea × neglecta.
The pre-blight distribution of the American Chestnut was restricted to moist but well-drained steep slopes with acid loam soils. According to analysis of old forest dust data, the tree was rare or absent in New England prior to 2,500 years before the present, but rapidly established dominance in these forests, becoming a common tree over a range from Maine and southern Ontario to Mississippi, and from the Atlantic coast to the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio Valley. In Pennsylvania, it is estimated to have comprised 25–30% of all hardwoods.
The tree's abundance was due to a combination of rapid growth, relative fire resistance, and a large annual nut crop in comparison to oaks which do not reliably produce sizable numbers of acorns every year. Fire was common in the pre-blight ecosystem of the American Chestnut, perhaps in part due to unique traits of the tree, including fire tolerance, highly flammable litter, tall stature, rapid growth, and ability to resprout. Historically, the mean fire return interval was 20 years or less in chestnut-predominant ecologies, with a forest stand pattern that was more open than is currently the case.
The American chestnut was an important tree for wildlife, providing much of the fall mast for species such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey and the passenger pigeon prior to its extinction. Black bears were also known to eat the nuts to fatten up for the winter. The American chestnut also contains more nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium in its leaves than other trees that share its habitat, so they return more nutrients to the soil which helps with the growth of other plants, animals, and microorganisms. The American chestnut is preferred by some avian seed hoarders, and was particularly important as a food source during years where the oak mast failed.


Prior to the Chestnut blight, the American chestnut was a dominant tree in the ecosystem of the eastern deciduous forest. It was said that a squirrel could walk from New England to Georgia solely on the branches of American chestnuts. Once an important hardwood timber tree, the American chestnut suffered a catastrophic population collapse due to the chestnut blight, a disease caused by an Asian bark fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica, formerly Endothia parasitica). The fungus was introduced when infected Japanese chestnut trees were brought to North America in the late 19th century. Chestnut blight was first noticed on American chestnut trees in what was then the New York Zoological Park, now known as the Bronx Zoo, in the borough of The Bronx, New York City, in 1904, by chief forester Hermann Merkel. Merkel estimated that by 1906 blight had infected 98 percent of the chestnut trees in the borough. While Asian chestnut species evolved with the blight and developed a strong resistance, the American chestnut and Allegheny chinquapin have little resistance. The airborne bark fungus spread 50 mi (80 km) a year and in a few decades girdled and killed up to three billion American chestnut trees. Salvage logging during the early years of the blight may have unwittingly destroyed trees that had high levels of resistance to the disease and thus aggravated the calamity. New shoots often sprout from the roots when the main stem dies, so the species has not yet become extinct. However, the stump sprouts rarely reach more than 6 m (20 ft) in height before blight infection returns, so the species is classified as functionally extinct since the chestnut blight only actively kills the above ground portion of the American chestnut tree, leaving behind the below-ground components such as the root systems. It was recorded in the 1900s that the chestnut blight would commonly reinfect any novel stems that grew from the stumps, therefore maintaining a cycle that would prevent the American chestnut tree from re-establishing. However, some American chestnut trees have survived because of a small natural resistance to the chestnut blight.
Chestnut blight is not to be confused with sun scald, where winter sun reflects off of snow, warming the bark on the sun-facing trunk. (This would be the south-facing trunk in the Northern Hemisphere.) This snow-reflected sunlight repeatedly warms and thaws the trunk during the day, resulting in vulnerability of the bark and cambium to freezing cold temperatures during the subsequent night, eventually resulting in bark cankers that resemble chestnut blight. Also, sun scald makes the damaged bark vulnerable to invasion by pathogens.


Before the onset of chestnut blight and prior to 1824, an epidemic of ink disease struck American chestnuts, most likely brought to the southern United States on imported cork oak trees from Portugal. This fungal pathogen is known to also kill the roots and collars of several Castanea species, including the European species C. sativa. It affected primarily chestnuts in the Southeastern US and at the later time when chestnut blight struck, the range of C. dentata may have already been reduced. The potential range of blight-resistant American chestnuts is substantially reduced if those chestnuts are susceptible to ink disease. Further, the range of this pathogen will extend northward as the climate warms, which may further limit the potential range of the American Chestnut.


The Chinese gall wasp attacks all Chestnut species and causes heavy damage. As this species of wasp is a threat to saplings, and is now widely-present in Eastern North American forests, it is a potential problem for reintroduction of the American chestnut. The Chinese parasitoid chalcid wasp Torymus sinensis Kamijo is considered an effective control method for the Chinese gall wasp. There are now established populations of Torymus sinensis Kamijo in North America.


The total number of chestnut trees in eastern North America was estimated at over three billion, and 25% of the trees in the Appalachian Mountains were American chestnut. The number of large surviving trees over 60 cm (24 in) in diameter within its former range is probably fewer than 100. American chestnuts were also a common part of the forest canopy in southeast Michigan.
Although large trees are currently rare east of the Mississippi River, it exists in pockets in the blight-free West, where the habitat was agreeable for planting: settlers took seeds of American chestnut with them in the 19th century. Huge planted chestnut trees can be found in Sherwood, Oregon, as the Mediterranean climate of the West Coast discourages the fungus, which relies on hot, humid summer weather. American chestnut also thrives as far north as Revelstoke, British Columbia.
At present, it is believed that survival of C. dentata for more than a decade in its native range is almost impossible. The fungus uses various oak trees as a host, and while the oak itself is unaffected, American chestnuts nearby will succumb to the blight in approximately a year or more. In addition, the hundreds of chestnut stumps and "living stools" dotting eastern woodlands may still contain active pathogens.
The reduced population of American chestnuts directly impacted many species of insects that relied upon the tree species for survival. Of approximately 60 species that feed upon the American chestnut, seven rely entirely on the American chestnut as a food source. Some of these, including the American chestnut moth, are now extinct.


Researchers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), have developed partially blight-resistant transgenic American chestnuts that are capable of surviving infection by Cryphonectria parasitica. This was done by inserting a specific gene from wheat, oxalate oxidase, into the American chestnut genome. The enzyme oxalate oxidase is a common fungal defense in plants, and is found in strawberries, bananas, oats, barley, and other cereals. Oxalate oxidase breaks down the oxalic acid which the fungus secretes in the cambium to lower the pH and subsequently kill plant tissues. The chestnut trees which contain this resistance gene can be infected by the chestnut blight, but the tree is not girdled by the resulting canker and heals around the wound. This lets the fungus fulfill its normal lifecycle without the death of the tree. The blight resistance gene is passed down to the tree's offspring to provide subsequent generations with partial blight resistance. In 2015, the researchers applied for government permission to make these trees available to the public. Extensive testing was done with the transgenic Darling 58 variant to assess its effects on other species. It was shown that the survival, pollen use, and reproduction of bumble bee was unaffected by oxalate oxidase at the typical concentrations found in the pollen of the American chestnut. A deregulation petition for the Darling 58 variant was submitted January 2020 with a public comment period ending October 19, 2020. These trees could be the first genetically modified forest trees released in the wild in the United States.
More recently, the SUNY ESF group has developed transgenic American chestnut trees incorporating both the oxalate oxidase transgene from wheat and the win3.12 promoter transgene from the necklace poplar. In these trees, oxalate oxidase transgene expression is at a low level of expression under basal conditions; under conditions of wounding or tissue infection, the win 3.12 promotor transgene induces expression of the oxalate oxidase transgene to high levels. This stacking of the oxalate oxidase transgene and the win 3.12 transgene is expected to be more metabolically efficient and thereby have greater transgene stability over successive generations compared with the Darling 58 variant.
Castanea dentata is susceptible to ink disease, particularly in the southern part of its natural range. Unlike Castanea dentata, Castanea crenata exhibits resistance to Phytophthora cinnamomi, the fungal pathogen that causes ink disease. The mechanism of resistance of Castanea crenata to Phytophthora cinnamomi may derive from its expression of the Cast_Gnk2-like gene. Transgenic modification of Castanea dentata with the Cast_Gnk2-like gene may provide a mechanism for developing Castanea dentata trees resistant to Phytophthora cinnamomi. Stacking of the Cast_Gnk2-like gene and the oxalate oxidase gene may provide a means of developing genetically modified Castanea dentata trees resistant to both the chestnut blight and to ink disease.


American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation (ACCF) is not using crosses with Asian species for blight resistance, but intercrossing among American chestnuts selected for native resistance to the blight, a breeding strategy described by the ACCF as "All-American intercrosses". John Rush Elkins, a research chemist and professor emeritus of chemistry at Concord University, and Gary Griffin, professor of plant pathology at Virginia Tech, think there may be several different characteristics which favor blight resistance. Both Elkins and Griffin have written extensively about the American chestnut. They believe that by making intercrosses among resistant American chestnuts from many locations, they will continue to improve upon the levels of blight resistance to make an American chestnut that can compete in the forest. Griffin, who has been involved with American chestnut restoration for many years, developed a scale for assessing levels of blight resistance, which made it possible to make selections scientifically. He inoculated five-year-old chestnuts with a standard lethal strain of the blight fungus and measured growth of the cankers. Chestnuts with no resistance to blight make rapid-growing, sunken cankers that are deep and kill tissue right to the wood. Resistant chestnuts make slow-growing, swollen cankers that are superficial: live tissue can be recovered under these cankers. The level of blight resistance is judged by periodic measurement of cankers. Grafts from large survivors of the blight epidemic were evaluated following inoculations, and controlled crosses among resistant American chestnut trees were made beginning in 1980. The first "All-American intercrosses" were planted in Virginia Tech's Martin American Chestnut Planting in Giles County, Virginia, and in Beckley, West Virginia. They were inoculated in 1990 and evaluated in 1991 and 1992. Nine of the trees showed resistance equal to their parents, and four of these had resistance comparable to hybrids in the same test. Many ACCF chestnuts have expressed blight resistance equal to or greater than an original blight survivor but so far, only a handful have demonstrated superior, durable blight control. Time will tell if the progeny of these best chestnuts exhibit durable blight resistance in different stress environments.


Backcrossing as a treatment for blight was first proposed by Charles Burnham of the University of Minnesota in the 1970s. Burnham, a professor emeritus in agronomy and plant genetics who was considered one of the pioneers of maize genetics, realized that experiments conducted by the USDA to cross-breed American chestnuts with European and Asian chestnuts erroneously assumed that a large number of genes were responsible for blight resistance, while it is currently believed the number of responsible genes is low. The USDA abandoned their cross-breeding program and destroyed local plantings around 1960 after failing to produce a blight-resistant hybrid. Burnham's recognition of the USDA's error led to him joining with others to create The American Chestnut Foundation in 1983, with the sole purpose of breeding a blight-resistant American chestnut. The American Chestnut Foundation is backcrossing blight-resistant Chinese chestnut into American chestnut trees, to recover the American growth characteristics and genetic makeup, and then finally intercrossing the advanced backcross generations to eliminate genes for susceptibility to blight. The first backcrossed American chestnut tree, called "Clapper", survived blight for 25 years, and grafts of the tree have been used by The American Chestnut Foundation since 1983. The Pennsylvania chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation, which seeks to restore the American chestnut to the forests of the Mid-Atlantic states, has planted over 22,000 trees.
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 requires owners of abandoned coal mines to cover at least 80 percent of their land with vegetation. While many companies planted invasive grasses, others began funding research on planting trees, because they can be more cost-effective, and yield better results. Keith Gilland began planting American chestnut trees in old strip mines in 2008 as a student at Miami University, and to date has planted over 5,000 trees. In 2005, a hybrid tree with mostly American genes was planted on the lawn of the White House. A tree planted in 2005 in the tree library outside the USDA building was still very healthy seven years later; it contains 98% American chestnut DNA and 2% Chinese chestnut DNA. This tree contains enough Chinese chestnut DNA that encodes for systemic resistance genes to resist the blight. This is essential for restoring the American chestnut trees into the Northeast. The Northern Nut Growers Association (NNGA) has also been active in pursuing viable hybrids. From 1962 to 1990, Alfred Szego and other members of the NNGA developed hybrids with Chinese varieties which showed limited resistance. Initially the backcrossing method would breed a hybrid from an American chestnut nut and a Chinese chestnut, the hybrid would then be bred with a normal American chestnut, subsequent breeding would involve a hybrid and an American chestnut or two hybrids, which would increase the genetic makeup of the hybrids primarily American chestnut but still retain the blight resistance of the Chinese chestnut.


About 2,500 chestnut trees are growing on 60 acres near West Salem, Wisconsin, which is the world's largest remaining stand of American chestnut. These trees are the descendants of those planted by Martin Hicks, an early settler in the area, who planted fewer than a dozen trees in the late 1800s. Planted outside the natural range of chestnut, these trees escaped the initial onslaught of chestnut blight, but in 1987, scientists found blight in the stand. Scientists are working to try to save the trees.
Some 1,348 chestnut trees, varying in size from seedlings to nearly mature trees, are growing in a forest in Western Maine. These chestnuts were originally established in 1982 from four seed-bearing trees sourced from wild stock of a northern Michigan relict population. This grove of trees has dispersed over an area up to 370 meters from the parent trees. The trees appear to be free of chestnut blight.
Two of the largest surviving American chestnut trees are in Jackson County, Tennessee. One, the state champion, has a diameter of 61 cm (24 in) and a height of 23 m (75 ft), and the other tree is nearly as large. One of them has been pollinated with hybrid pollen by members of The American Chestnut Foundation; the progeny will have mostly American chestnut genes and some will be blight resistant.
On May 18, 2006, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources spotted a stand of several trees near Warm Springs, Georgia. One of the trees is approximately 20–30 years old and 13 m (43 ft) tall and is the southernmost American chestnut tree known to be flowering and producing nuts.
Another large tree was found in Talladega National Forest, Alabama, in June 2005.
In the summer of 2007, a stand of trees was discovered near the northeastern Ohio town of Braceville. The stand encompasses four large flowering trees, the largest of which is about 23 m (75 ft) tall, sited among hundreds of smaller trees that have not begun to flower, located in and around a sandstone quarry. A combination of factors may account for the survival of these relatively large trees, including low levels of blight susceptibility, hypovirulence, and good site conditions. In particular, some stands may have avoided exposure due to being located at a higher altitude than blighted trees in the neighboring area; the fungal spores are not carried to higher altitudes as easily.
In March 2008, officials of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced a rare adult American chestnut tree had been discovered in a marsh near Lake Erie. The officials admitted they had known about the tree for seven years, but had kept its existence a secret. The exact location of the tree is still being held secret, both because of the risk of infecting the tree and because an eagle has nested in its branches. They described the tree as being 89 feet (27 m) tall and having a circumference of 5 feet (1.5 m). The American Chestnut Foundation was also only recently told about the tree's existence.
Members of the Kentucky chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation have been pollinating a tree found on a farm in Adair County, and a specimen found on Henderson Ridge in Elliott County. The Adair County tree is over one hundred years old.
In June 2007, a mature American chestnut was discovered in Farmington, New Hampshire.
In rural Missaukee County, Michigan, a blight-free grove of American chestnut trees approximately 0.33 acres (0.13 ha) in size with the largest tree measuring 128 in (330 cm) in circumference (40 in (100 cm) diameter) has been located. It is believed to be the result of nuts planted by early settlers in the area. The American Chestnut Council, located in the local town of Cadillac, Michigan, has verified its identity and existence. Efforts have been initiated to protect the property from logging and development.
In Lansing, Michigan, Fenner Nature Center is home to a grove of blight-free American chestnuts descended from the aforementioned grove in Missaukee County.
American chestnuts have been located on Beaver Island, a large island in northern Lake Michigan.
Hundreds of healthy American chestnuts have been found in the proposed Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Area in the Allegheny National Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania. Many of these trees are large, measuring more than 60 ft (18 m) in height. These trees will be protected from logging if the wilderness area, proposed by Friends of Allegheny Wilderness, is passed into law.
The Montreal Botanical Garden has the American chestnut among its collection of trees and ornamental shrubs.
Three of Portland, Oregon's heritage trees are American chestnuts, along with three Spanish (European) chestnuts.
At least two American chestnuts live on the side of Skitchewaug Trail in Springfield, Vermont.
Around 300 to 500 trees were spotted in the George Washington National Forest near Augusta County, Virginia, in 2014. Over one dozen trees were at least 12 inches in diameter with several measuring nearly 24 inches in diameter. Only one of the larger trees was a seed and pollen producer with numerous pods and pollen strands lying on ground. The site did, however, have a high presence of chestnut blight, although the seed producing tree and several other large ones were relatively blight-free with minimal to no damage.
Two trees were planted 1985 in Nova Scotia, at Dalhousie University, Sexton Campus and are thriving. The donated trees were from saplings grown in Europe, away from the blight. They have 16" diameter trunks and are approximately 40 feet high.
A single mature American chestnut can be found on the front lawn of the McPhail house heritage site in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, planted by former mayor John Alexander McPhail in the 1920s. Well north of the natural range of the chestnut, it has avoided the blight.
There is one American chestnut in Pennsylvania in the county of Columbia in the township of South Centre. It is a hardy, nut producing tree that has been producing for nearly 30 years.
A solitary tree exists in the New York County of Orange, within the Town of Wawayanda. This was planted in the early 1990s as part of a local soil and water conservation district program to identify blight/resistant specimens. It has borne fruit since 2005.
A lone but "perfect" American Chestnut tree grows on the Oakdale Campus in Coralville, Iowa.
The great majority of chestnut trees in the United States are derived from Dunstan chestnuts, developed in Greensboro, N.C. in the 1960s.
The Canadian Chestnut Council has a plot growing and harvesting chestnut trees at Tim Hortons Children's Foundation Onondaga Farms. The seedlings are grown at a Simcoe, Ont, Canada station. They are then brought in the spring to this test plantation in St. George, Ont., between Brantford and Cambridge.
Multiple chestnut trees are still alive and nut bearing in Wind River Arboretum, Washington State.


The nuts were once an important economic resource in North America, being sold on the streets of towns and cities, as they sometimes still are during the Christmas season (usually said to be "roasting on an open fire" because their smell is readily identifiable many blocks away). Chestnuts are edible raw or roasted, though typically preferred roasted. Nuts of the European sweet chestnut are now sold instead in many stores. One must peel the brown skin to access the yellowish-white edible portion. Native Americans used various parts of the American chestnut to treat ailments such as whooping cough, heart conditions and chafed skin. The nuts were commonly fed on by various types of wildlife and was also in such a high abundance that they were commonly used to feed livestock by farmers, by allowing those livestock to roam freely into the forests that were predominantly filled with American chestnut trees. The American chestnut tree was also important to Native Americans as it acted as a food source for both the Native Americans and the wildlife often hunted as game.
The unrelated horse-chestnut's seeds are poisonous without extensive preparation.


The January 1888 issue of Orchard and Garden mentions the American chestnut as being "superior in quality to any found in Europe". The wood is straight-grained, strong, and easy to saw and split, and it lacks the radial end grain found on most other hardwoods. The tree was particularly valuable commercially since it grew at a faster rate than oaks. Being rich in tannins, the wood was highly resistant to decay and therefore used for a variety of purposes, including furniture, split-rail fences, shingles, home construction, flooring, piers, plywood, paper pulp, and telephone poles. Tannins were also extracted from the bark for tanning leather. Although larger trees are no longer available for milling, much chestnut wood has been reclaimed from historic barns to be refashioned into furniture and other items.
"Wormy" chestnut refers to a defective grade of wood that has insect damage, having been sawn from long-dead, blight-killed trees. This "wormy" wood has since become fashionable for its rustic character.
The American chestnut is not considered a particularly good patio shade tree because its droppings are prolific and a considerable nuisance. Catkins in the spring, spiny nut pods in the fall, and leaves in the early winter can all be a problem. These characteristics are more or less common to all shade trees, but perhaps not to the same degree as with the chestnut. The spiny seed pods are a particular nuisance when scattered over an area frequented by people.


Castanea sativa, the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived deciduous tree, it produces an edible seed, the chestnut, which has been used in cooking since ancient times.


The tree is to be distinguished from the horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum, to which it is only distantly related. The horse chestnut bears similar looking seeds (conkers) in a similar seed case, which are not palatable to humans. Other common names include "Spanish chestnut", or "marron" (French for "chestnut"). The Latin sativa means "cultivated by humans". Some selected varieties are smaller and more compact in growth yielding earlier in life with different ripening time: the Marigoule, the Marisol and the Maraval.


The species is native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor. It is found across the Mediterranean region, from the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is thought to have survived the last ice age in several refuges in Southern Europe, on the southern coast of the Black Sea with a main centre on the southern slope of the Caucasus and in the region of north-western Syria, possibly extending into Lebanon.
The species is widely distributed throughout Europe, where in 2004 C. sativa was grown on 2,250,000 hectares (5,600,000 acres) of forest, of which 1,780,000 ha (4,400,000 acres) were mainly cultivated for wood and 430,000 ha (1,100,000 acres) for fruit production. Italy, France, southern Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Greece are countries with a strong sweet chestnut tradition, with trees cultivated intensively in coppices and orchards. Countries like England, Croatia, Turkey and Georgia only have a partially developed sweet chestnut tradition due to geography or history. Nevertheless, centuries-old specimens may be found in Great Britain today. Examples can be seen particularly in the London Boroughs of Islington and Camden. In other European countries, C. sativa has only been introduced recently, for example in Slovakia or the Netherlands.
The tree requires a mild climate and adequate moisture for good growth and a good nut harvest. Its year-growth (but not the rest of the tree) is sensitive to late spring and early autumn frosts; it is also intolerant of lime. Under forest conditions, it will tolerate moderate shade well. It can live to more than 2,000 years of age in natural conditions, such as the Hundred Horse Chestnut near Mount Etna in eastern Sicily.


The leaves provide food for some animals, including Lepidoptera such as the case-bearer moth Coleophora anatipennella and North American rose chafer Macrodactylus subspinosus.
The two major fungal pathogens of the sweet chestnut are the chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica) and the ink disease caused by Phytophthora cambivora and Phytophthora cinnamomi. In North America as well as in Southern Europe Cryphonectria parasitica destroyed most of the chestnut population in the 20th century. With biological control, the population of the sweet chestnut is not threatened anymore by the chestnut blight and is regenerating. Ink disease is infesting trees mostly in humid soils, with the mycelium invading the root and resulting in wilting of the leaf. Absence of fruit formation leads to die back of the petal. The ink disease is named after the black exudates at the base of the trunk. Nowadays there are cultivars that are resistant to the ink disease. Phytophthora cambivora caused serious damage in Asia and the US, and it still continues to destroy new plantations in Europe.
Another serious pest which is difficult to control is the gall wasp (Dryocosmus kuriphylus) which was recently introduced in Southern Europe, originating in Asia.


Three different cultivation systems for the sweet chestnut can be distinguished:
Coppicing: Mainly for wood extraction. Standard conditions yield 15 m³ wood per ha and year.
Selve: Fruit production from grafted trees. The trees have a short tribe and a big crown. Trees have a high density and the ground between the trees is often used as pasture.
High forest: Wood and fruit production. This cultivation form is less intensive with a yield of 4–12 dt/ha and replacement of trees every 50–80 years. The trees grow from seeds and build a dense canopy.
The field management is dependent on the cultivation system. While cleaning the soil from the leaves and pruning is the norm, the use of fertilizer, irrigation and pesticides is less common and reserved for more intensive cultivation.


The sweet chestnut tree grows well on limestone-free, deeply weathered soil. The optimal pH value of the soil is between 4.5 and 6, and the tree cannot tolerate soil compaction. The tolerance to wet ground and to clay-rich soils is very low. It is a heat-loving tree which needs a long vegetation period. The optimal average temperature is between 8 °C and 15 °C and in January the temperature should preferably not be below -1 °C but it may tolerate temperatures as low as -15 °C. Low temperature in autumn can damage the fruit. The maximal altitude is strongly dependent on the climate. In general, the climate should be similar to viticulture. Optimal precipitation is between 400 and 1,600 millimetres (16 and 63 in). Before planting, seeds must be stratified at 2-3 °C so germination can start 30–40 days later. After a year, the young trees are being transplanted.


A tree grown from seed may take 20 years or more before it bears fruits, but a grafted cultivar such as 'Marron de Lyon' or 'Paragon' may start production within five years of being planted. Both cultivars bear fruits with a single large kernel, rather than the usual two to four smaller kernels.
The fruit yield per tree is usually between 30–100 kilograms (66–220 pounds), but can get as high as 300 kg. Harvest time is between middle of September and middle of November. There are three harvesting techniques:
By hand: The sweet chestnuts are harvested by rake or broom, with a harvest speed of 5 to 30 kg every hour depending on the soil relief. Also, the capsule makes the harvest more complicated and even painful for the worker.
By hand with nets: This technique is less time-consuming and protects the fruits from injuries. However, setting up the nets is work intensive.
Mechanical: The fruits are collected with a machine that works similarly to a vacuum cleaner. Doing so is time-saving and economical, but it's possible that some fruits get injured, and a big initial investment is needed. Furthermore, a visual sorting is not possible.
The total world chestnut harvest was 1.17 million tons in 2006, but only 151,000 tons were C. sativa.


The most widespread treatment before storage is water curing, a process in which the sweet chestnuts are immersed in water for nine days. The aim of this practice is to limit the main storage problems threatening the sweet chestnut: fungi development and the presence of insect worms. As an alternative to water curing, hot water treatment is also commercially used.
After water treatment, the sweet chestnuts are stored in a controlled environment with high carbon dioxide concentrations. In contrast to a cold storage system, where the fruits are stored at low temperatures in untreated air, the controlled environment method avoids flesh hardening which negatively impacts the processability of the product.


Bouche de Betizac
Maraval
Marigoule
Marsol
Precoce Migoule


The species is widely cultivated for its edible seeds (also called nuts) and for its wood.
Sweet chestnut has been listed as one of the 38 substances used to prepare Bach flower remedies, a kind of alternative medicine promoted for its supposed effect on health. However, according to Cancer Research UK, "there is no scientific evidence to prove that flower remedies can control, cure or prevent any type of disease, including cancer".


The species' large genetic diversity and different cultivars are exploited for uses such as flour, boiling, roasting, drying, and sweets.
The raw nuts, though edible, have a skin which is astringent and unpleasant to eat when still moist; after drying for a time the thin skin loses its astringency but is still better removed to reach the white fruit underneath. Cooking dry in an oven or fire normally helps remove this skin. Chestnuts are traditionally roasted in their tough brown husks after removing the spiny cupules in which they grow on the tree, the husks being peeled off and discarded and the hot chestnuts dipped in salt before eating them. Roast chestnuts are traditionally sold in streets, markets and fairs by street vendors with mobile or static braziers.
The skin of raw peeled chestnuts can be relatively easily removed by quickly blanching the nuts after scoring them by a cross slit at the tufted end. Once cooked, chestnuts acquire a sweet flavour and a floury texture similar to the sweet potato. The cooked nuts can be used for stuffing poultry, as a vegetable or in nut roasts. They can also be used in confections, puddings, desserts and cakes. They are used for flour, bread making, a cereal substitute, coffee substitute, a thickener in soups and other cookery uses, as well as for fattening stock. A sugar can be extracted from them. The Corsican variety of polenta (called pulenta) is made with sweet chestnut flour. A local variety of Corsican beer also uses chestnuts. The product is sold as a sweetened paste mixed with vanilla, crème de marrons, sweetened or unsweetened as chestnut purée or purée de marron, and candied chestnuts as marrons glacés.
In Switzerland, it is often served as Vermicelles.
Roman soldiers were given chestnut porridge before going into battle.
Leaf infusions are used in respiratory diseases and are a popular remedy for whooping cough. A hair shampoo can be made from infusing leaves and fruit husks.


Castanea sativa is considered as having very interesting nutritional characteristics. The fruit contains significant amounts of a wide range of valuable nutrients. In the past, its characteristic and nutritional components gave sweet chestnut an important role in human nutrition due to its beneficial health effects. Sweet chestnut is also appreciated in a gluten-free diet. Furthermore, this characteristic is valuable in cases of celiac diseases as well as reducing coronary heart diseases and cancer rates. Various composition and health studies have shown its big potential as a food ingredient and functional food. The fat content is very low and is dominated for the most part by unsaturated fatty acids. Sweet chestnut is a good source for starch; chestnuts of all varieties generally contain about the same amount of starch. The energy value per 100 g (3.5 oz) of C. sativa amounts to 891 kJ (213 kcal). C. sativa is characterized by high moisture content which ranges from 41% to 59% and a considerable level of starch (≈40 g 100 g⁻¹ dry matter). Regarding mineral content, the chestnut provides a good source for copper, iron, magnesium, manganese and potassium. Its sugar content ranges from 14% to 20% dry weight depending on the cultivar; which is very important, since the sensory appeal of sweet chestnut is correlated with its sugar content. However, high sugar amounts seem to have a negative impact on the fiber content. Generally, glucose content in European chestnuts is very low and ranges from zero to traces. Instead, fructose is mostly responsible for the sweet taste.


Sweet chestnut is suited for human nutrition. Most sweet chestnut is consumed in processed form, which has an impact on the nutrient composition. Its naturally high concentration of organic acids is a key factor influencing the organoleptic characteristics of fruits and vegetables, namely flavor. Organic acids are thought to play an important role against diseases as an antioxidant. Heat appears to be the most influencing factor when it comes to decreasing the organic acid content. However, even after heating sweet chestnuts, antioxidant activity remains relatively high. On the other hand, the consumer must consider that roasting, boiling or frying has a big impact on the nutritional profile of chestnut. Vitamin C significantly decreases between 25 and 54% when boiled and 2–77 % when roasted. Nevertheless, roasted or boiled chestnuts may still be a solid vitamin C source, since 100 gram still represent about 20% of the recommended daily dietary intake. The sugar content is also affected by the high temperatures. Four processes are decisive for the degrading process of sugar while cooking: hydrolysis of starch to oligosaccharide and monosaccharide, decomposition of sucrose to glucose and fructose, caramelization of sugars and degradation of sugars. Organic acids are also affected by high temperatures: their content decreases about 50% after frying, and 15% after boiling. Responsible for the aromatic characteristics of cooked chestnuts is the effect of degradation of saccharides, proteins and lipids, the caramelization of saccharides and the maillard reaction that is reducing sugar and amino acids.


This tree responds very well to coppicing, which is still practised in Britain, and produces a good crop of tannin-rich wood every 12 to 30 years, depending on intended use and local growth rate. The tannin renders the young growing wood durable and weather resistant for outdoor use, thus suitable for posts, fencing or stakes. The wood is of light colour, hard and strong. It is used to make furniture, barrels (sometimes used to age balsamic vinegar), and roof beams notably in southern Europe (for example in houses of the Alpujarra, Spain, in southern France and elsewhere).  The timber has a density of 560 kg per cubic meter, and due to its durability in ground contact is often used for external purposes such as fencing. It is also a good fuel, though not favoured for open fires as it tends to spit.
Tannin is found in the following proportions on a 10% moisture basis: bark (6.8%), wood (13.4%), seed husks (10 - 13%). The leaves also contain tannin.


Pollen data indicates that the first spreading of C. sativa due to human activity started around 2100–2050 B.C. in Anatolia, northeastern Greece and southeastern Bulgaria. Compared to other crops, the sweet chestnut was probably of relatively minor importance and distributed very heterogeneously throughout these regions. The first charcoal remains of sweet chestnut only date from around 850–950 B.C., making it very difficult to infer a precise origin history. A newer but more reliable source are the literary works of Ancient Greece, with the richest being Theophrastus's Historia plantarum, written in the third century B.C. Theophrastus focuses mainly on the use of sweet chestnut wood as timber and charcoal, only mentioning the use of the fruit once when commenting on the digestive difficulties it causes, but praising its nourishing quality. Several Greek authors wrote about medicinal properties of the sweet chestnut, specifically as a remedy against lacerations of the lips and of the oesophagus.
Similar to the introduction of grape vine and olive cultivation to the Latin world, C. sativa is thought to have been introduced during the colonisation of the Italian peninsula by the Greeks. Further clues pointing to this theory can be found in the work of Pliny the Elder, who mentions only Greek colonies in connection with sweet chestnut cultivation. Today's phylogenetic map of the sweet chestnut, while not fully understood, shows greater genetic similarity between Italian and western Anatolian C. sativa trees compared to eastern Anatolian specimen, reinforcing these findings. Nonetheless, until the end of the pre-Christian era, the spread and use of the chestnut in Italy remained limited. Carbonised sweet chestnuts were found in a Roman villa at Torre Annunziata near Naples, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
Clues in art and literature indicate a dislike of the sweet chestnut by the Roman aristocracy. Like Theophrastus, Latin authors are sceptical of the sweet chestnut as a fruit, and Pliny the Elder even goes as far as admiring how well nature has hidden this fruit of apparently so little value. In the beginning of the Christian era, people probably started to realize the value and versatility of sweet chestnut wood, leading to a slow spread of the cultivation of C. sativa trees, a theory that is supported by pollen data and literary sources, as well as the increased use of sweet chestnut wood as poles and in supporting structures, wood works and pier building between A.D. 100 and 600.
Increasing sweet chestnut pollen appearances in Switzerland, France, Germany and the Iberian peninsula in the first century A.D. suggests the spreading of cultivated sweet chestnut trees by the Romans. Contrary to that notion, other scientists found no indication of the Romans spreading C. sativa before the fifth century. While the husks of sweet chestnuts, dated to the third or early fourth century, have been identified from the bottom of a Roman well at Great Holts Farm, in Boreham in Essex, England; this deposit includes remains of other exotic food plants and provides no evidence that any of them originated locally. No other evidence of sweet chestnut in Roman Britain has been confirmed.  Indeed, no centre of sweet chestnut cultivation outside the Italian peninsula in Roman times has been detected. Widespread use of chestnut in western Europe started in the early Middle Ages and flourished in the late Middle Ages. In the mid-seventh-century Lombard laws, a composition of one solidi is set for felling a chestnut tree (or, also, hazel, pear or apple) belonging to another person (Edictum Rothari, No. 301, 643 AD). Since the beginning of the 20th century, due to depopulation of the countryside and the abandonment of the sweet chestnut as a staple food as well as the spread of chestnut blight and ink disease, C. sativa cultivation has dramatically decreased. Nowadays, sweet chestnut production is sometimes seen at a turning point again, because the development of high-value sweet chestnut products combined with changing needs of an urban society is leading to a revival in C. sativa cultivation.


Castilleja applegatei is a species of Castilleja known by the common names Applegate's Indian paintbrush and wavyleaf Indian paintbrush.
It is native to the western United States. It is a short perennial with sticky, wavy-edged leaves, which are divided closer to the top of the plant. It bears bright, showy paintbrush-shaped inflorescences of small red to yellowish-red tubular flowers.
Like other species of Indian paintbrush, it is a root parasite, feeding off plants such as sagebrush. Although it can survive without parasitizing other plants, individuals which take a host grow faster and larger.
There are five subspecies. They are variable in appearance but distinguishable from other Castilleja species by the wavy margins and stickiness of the leaves.


Castilleja attenuata is a species of Indian paintbrush, known by the common names valley tassels and attenuate Indian paintbrush.
It is native to western North America from British Columbia, through California, to Baja California, where it grows in grasslands and open woodland habitats.


Castilleja attenuata is an annual herb growing up to about 50 centimeters tall. The leaves are linear in shape and several centimeters long.
The inflorescence has three-lobed bracts with yellow or white tips. Between the bracts emerge fuzzy white flowers dotted with purple and yellow.


Castilleja angustifolia (synonym: Castilleja chromosa) is a species of wildflower known by the common names northwestern Indian paintbrush and desert Indian paintbrush.  It is an herbaceous perennial native to the desert, scrublands, and woodlands of western North America. It grows in hot sandy soils and rock crevices in dry conditions.


This Indian paintbrush is under half a meter in height and has bristly gray-green to purple-red herbage. It stands in a clump of erect stems, each topped with an inflorescence of somewhat tubular yellow green flowers. The flowers are encased in bright red to orange-red bracts, sometimes tinted with purple, and usually fuzzy with a thin coat of white hairs. The upper leaves and bracts are divided into 3–5 segments, while the lower leaves are undivided, long, and narrow.
The plant flowers from May to September. In areas such as Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, it is often associated with sagebrush. The brightly colored bracts are used to attach pollinators like hummingbirds and butterflies that would otherwise ignore the plant's small yellow green flowers. The centimeter-long capsule fruits contain honeycomb-patterned seeds.
The species is similar to Castilleja linariaefolia.


Castilleja coccinea, commonly known as scarlet Indian paintbrush or scarlet painted-cup, is a flowering plant in the family Orobanchaceae. It is usually found in moist meadows, prairies, and barrens from Maine to Minnesota, and south to Florida and Louisiana.


It is an upright, hairy, 1-to-7-decimeter (3.9 to 27.6 in) tall hemiparasitic plant.  The stem is usually unbranched and rises from a basal rosette.  The basal leaves are oblong and mostly entire, while the alternate stem leaves are deeply and irregularly lobed. The common names for this plant reflect the showy red calyx, inside of which is the actual greenish-yellow corolla ("flower").
Castilleja coccinea can be distinguished from other Castilleja of the southeastern US because it has a 2-to-3.5-millimeter long, thin yellowish or orangish lip on the corolla, the inflorescence bracts are deeply lobed, and the basal rosettes of leaves are usually well-developed.


C.coccinea have color polymorphism, which means that they can be yellow or scarlet in color, and this depends on the availability of pollinators such as bees. When pollinators are present, the scarlet C. coccinea tend to have a higher reproductive output, as they have higher seed and fruit set. On the other hand, the yellow C.coccinea would have a higher reproductive output when pollinators are scarce.


Though it can survive on its own, studies indicate a forty-fold growth increase when its roots parasitize those of another plant for nutrients.  It is primarily pollinated by ruby-throated hummingbirds who can transfer the pollen long distances between typically small and scattered populations of this plant.


Castilleja exserta (formerly Orthocarpus purpurascens) is a species of plant in the genus Castilleja which includes the Indian paintbrushes. Its common names include purple owl's clover, escobita, and exserted Indian paintbrush.
This species is native to the Southwestern United States in various habitats of California, Arizona, and New Mexico; and to Northwestern Mexico. It is an introduced species in Hawaii.


Castilleja exserta is an annual herb about 100–450 millimetres (4–18 in) tall with a hairy stem covered in thready leaves. Like other related Castilleja plants, this species is a hemiparasite, deriving some of its nutrients directly from the roots of other plants by infiltrating them with haustoria. As a result, its own leaves are small and reduced.
Although this species is variable in appearance and easily hybridizes with other Castilleja species, it generally bears a brightly colored inflorescence of shaggy pink-purple or lavender flowers. The thin, erect bracts are usually tipped with the same color, giving the inflorescence the appearance of a paintbrush.


Varieties include:
Castilleja exserta var. exserta — pale purple owlclover.
Castilleja exserta var. latifolia — wideleaf Indian paintbrush; endemic to coastal California.
Castilleja exserta var. venusta — endemic to California: Mojave Desert, southern San Joaquin Valley.


This is a crucial host plant for the Bay checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis), which is a threatened species that is endemic to the San Francisco Bay region in California.
The seeds were harvested by indigenous peoples of California for food.


Castilleja foliolosa is a species of Indian paintbrush, known by the common names woolly Indian paintbrush and Texas Indian paintbrush.
It is native to California and northern Baja California, where it grows in chaparral and rocky desert and mountain slopes. Despite its common name, it does not occur in Texas.


Castilleja foliolosa is a perennial wildflower that grows up to 60 centimeters tall and is coated in woolly white or gray branching hairs. The leaves are linear in shape and up to 5 centimeters long.
The inflorescence is made up of layers of bracts tipped in bright orange-red to dull yellowish green. Between the colorful bracts appear the nondescript flowers, which are greenish in color and pouch-shaped. The fruit is a capsule just over a centimeter long.


Castilleja indivisa, commonly known as Texas Indian paintbrush or entireleaf Indian paintbrush, is a hemiparasitic annual wildflower native to Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma in the United States. There are historical records of the species formerly growing in Arkansas, and reports of naturalized populations in Florida and Alabama.
The bright red leaf-like bracts surrounding the white to greenish flowers make the plant look like a ragged brush dipped in red paint. They sometimes produce a light yellow or pure white variation mixed in with the reds.
Each plant typically grows 30–45 cm (12–18 in) in height. The leaves are long and stalkless. The roots grow until they reach the roots of other plants, mainly grasses, and then penetrate the roots of the "host" plant to obtain a portion of their needed nutrients (known as semi- or hemiparasitic).
Texas paintbrush typically blooms in early to mid-spring and thrives in well-drained areas with full sun. They can be seen along highways and in fields, complementing the deep blue of the bluebonnets.


Castilleja integra, with the common name wholeleaf Indian paintbrush, is an herbaceous perennial plant native to the Southwestern United States.


The plant is found in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
Castilleja integra was first discovered in the Organ Mountains of Southern New Mexico near El Paso, Texas by Charles Wright.  Its first published description was in 1858 by Asa Gray.


The Zuni people used the root's bark, mixed with minerals, to dye deerskin black.


Castilleja latifolia is a species of Indian paintbrush known by the common name Monterey Indian paintbrush.
It is endemic to the coastline of California between the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey County. Its range extends from about Point Reyes to Big Sur. It is a plant of the immediate coastline, growing in sand dunes and coastal sage scrub.


This wildflower is a perennial herb growing up to about 60 centimeters tall and spreading into a shrublike form as it ages over the years.
It is bristly and hairy with green, gray-green, purple or purple-tinted herbage. The fleshy leaves are rounded or oval and up to 2 centimeters long.
The inflorescence is made up of layers of greenish bracts tipped with dull to very bright shades of red, orange, or yellow. Between the bracts appear the flowers, which are often similar in coloration. The fruit is a capsule up to 2 centimeters long.


Castilleja linariifolia is a perennial plant, native to the United States and is the state flower of Wyoming. It has a number of common names including Wyoming Indian paintbrush, narrow-leaved Indian paintbrush, desert paintbrush, Wyoming desert paintbrush, Wyoming paintbrush, linaria-leaved Indian Paintbrush, and Indian paintbrush.


It is a perennial herb. It grows up to one meter in height and has sparse, linear leaves which are between 20 and 80 mm in length and have up to 3 lobes. The flowers, which consist of a pinkish-red to yellow calyx and yellow-green floral tube, appear in panicles or spikes between June and September in its native range.


This species occurs on rocky slopes and arid plains and is associated with sagebrush scrub as well as pinyon pine or juniper woodland. It is native to Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.


When options were being considered for a state flower for Wyoming, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard from the University of Wyoming promoted this species over rival candidates including the columbine and fringed gentian.
The State of Wyoming officially adopted the Indian paintbrush ("Castilleja linariaefolia") as the state flower of Wyoming on January 31, 1917.


Castilleja miniata is a species of Indian paintbrush known by the common name giant red Indian paintbrush. It is native to western North America from Alaska to Ontario to California to New Mexico, where it grows usually in moist places in a wide variety of habitat types.


This wildflower is a perennial herb growing up to about 80 centimeters tall, slender and green to dark purple in herbage color. The lance-shaped leaves are 3 to 6 centimeters long, pointed, and coated in thin hairs. The inflorescence is made up of bright red to pale orange or orange-tipped bracts. Between the bracts emerge the yellow-green, red-edged tubular flowers. Flowers bloom May to September.
Because most species of the genus are parasitic on other plants, sophisticated networks are formed between their roots and those of other species. They therefore cannot be transplanted in most cases. Its native habitats include wet mountain meadows and stream banks below 11,000 feet (3,400 m).


There are three subspecies of this plant:
C. m. ssp. dixonii - limited to the west coast from Alaska to Oregon
C. m. ssp. elata (Siskiyou Indian paintbrush) - rare subspecies limited to the Klamath Mountains in Northern California and Southern Oregon
C. m. ssp. miniata - the common, widespread subspecies


Castilleja parviflora is a species of Indian paintbrush known by the common name mountain Indian paintbrush. It is native to western North America from Alaska to California, where it grows in high mountain habitat, including areas of alpine climate.


This wildflower is a perennial herb up to about 40 centimeters tall and coated in glandular and nonglandular hairs. The leaves are a few centimeters long and lance-shaped to oblong. The inflorescence is made up of layers of bracts tipped in shades of pale yellow to bright red or pink. Between the bracts emerge the yellow-green, sometimes red-tinted, tubular flowers. Flowers bloom June to September. Its habitats include gravels, talus slopes, and subalpine and alpine meadows.


There are several varieties of Castilleja parviflora:
C. p. var. albida - limited to British Columbia and Washington
C. p. var. olympica (Olympic Indian paintbrush) - limited to British Columbia and Washington
C. p. var. oreopola (Henry Indian paintbrush) - distributed from British Columbia to Oregon
C. p. var. parviflora - known from Alaska to California


Castilleja rubicundula is a species of Indian paintbrush known by the common name cream sacs. It is native to northern California and southwestern Oregon. It is found in coastal and inland grasslands.


Castilleja rubicundula is a hairy, glandular annual growing to about half a meter in height, the stem leafy with lance-shaped foliage.
It produces a terminal inflorescence and sometimes branches off several more inflorescences. The white, pink, yellow, or bicolored flowers are divided into usually three pouches, making them look inflated. Each pouch is about a centimeter wide and half a centimeter deep. Each flower has a beak extending about half a centimeter above the pouches.
The fruit is a capsule containing tiny seeds less than a millimeter long. Under magnification the seed's honeycomb-patterned coat is visible.


Subspecies and varieties include:
Castilleja rubicundula ssp. lithospermoides
Castilleja rubicundula ssp. rubicundula — endemic to the Sacramento Valley, California.
Castilleja rubicundula var. rubicundula


Catalpa speciosa, commonly known as the northern catalpa, hardy catalpa, western catalpa, cigar tree, catawba-tree,
 or bois chavanon, is a species of Catalpa native to the midwestern United States.
The Latin specific epithet speciosa means “showy”.


It is a medium-sized, deciduous tree growing to 15–30 meters tall and 12 meters wide. It has a trunk up to 1 m diameter, with brown to gray bark maturing into hard plates or ridges.
The leaves are deciduous, opposite (or whorled), large, heart shaped, 20–30 cm long and 15–20 cm broad, pointed at the tip and softly hairy beneath. The leaves generally do not color in autumn before falling, instead, they either fall abruptly after the first hard freeze, or turn a slightly yellow-brown before dropping off. The catalpa tree is the last tree to grow leaves in the spring. The winter twigs of northern catalpa are like those of few other trees, having sunken leaf scars that resemble suction cups. Their whorled arrangement (three scars per node) around the twigs is another diagnostic.
The flowers are 3–6 cm across, trumpet shaped, white with yellow stripes and purple spots inside; they grow in panicles of 10-30.
The fruit is a long, thin legume-like capsule, 20–40 cm long and 10–12 mm diameter; it often stays attached to tree during winter (and can be mistaken for brown icicles). The pod contains numerous flat, light brown seeds with two papery wings.
It is closely related to southern catalpa, and can be distinguished by the flowering panicles, which bear a smaller number of larger flowers, and the slightly broader seed pods.


Catalpa speciosa was originally thought to be native only to a small area of the midwestern United States near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. However, in 1976, investigation of an  archeological site of an island in West Virginia's portion of the Ohio River revealed Catalpa speciosa to be present on the island around the period of 1500-1700 CE. This suggests that Catalpa speciosa may have experienced a decline in range before European settlement. Today, its range has widely expanded east of the Rocky Mountains outside of its restricted pre-settlement location, further obscuring its true native range.