American Chestnut facts

While investigating facts about American Chestnut Tree and American Chestnut Foundation, I found out little known, but curios details like:

There used to be 4 billion American chestnut trees, but they all disappeared because of a fungus that kills them as saplings.

how to identify american chestnut?

Scientists have successfully genetically engineered American chestnut trees to resist the blight that annihilated them, bringing back a species from functional extinction.

What killed the american chestnut?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what does an american chestnut tree look like. Here are 14 of the best facts about American Chestnut Trees For Sale and American Chestnut Blight I managed to collect.

what happened to the american chestnut tree?

1. The First Extinct Plant to be Restored by Genetic Engineering is the American Chestnut Tree, Which is Currently Seeking Approval by the US Government for Public Distribution

2. American chestnut trees covered 25% of the hardwood forests in the eastern U.S. until 1904, when it was infected with a Japanese fungus. By 1950, less than one-hundred trees survived and it nearly went extinct.

3. The American Chestnut tree was almost completely destroyed by Chestnut Blight 100 years ago. Before the blight there were 4 billion trees, there are now around 100 mature trees left. Any new trees planted today are killed by the blight before they mature.

4. Size of chestnut depends on the species. They can grow in the form of bush or tree. Tallest species, American chestnut, can reach 100 feet in height.

5. Almost all 4 billion American Chestnut trees were killed, and most of the remaining ones turned into shrubs, by an imported fungus

6. One of the largest, tallest, and fastest-growing trees - the American Chestnut - has nearly gone extinct since the beginning of the 20th century due to blight. The chestnut blight has been called the greatest ecological disaster to strike the world’s forests in all of history.

7. Several Crayola colors were renamed. In 1958, Prussian Blue became Midnight Blue. Flesh became Peach in 1962. Indian Red became Chestnut in 1999, due to concern that the color might be thought to represent the skin of American Indians (in fact it referred to a reddish-brown pigment from India)

8. The Darling American Chestnut, a project to save the critically endangered American Chestnut with genetic engineering

9. Officer Jacob Chestnut, a Capitol Police officer was the first African American to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda along with his colleague Det. John Gibson after they were both murdered by a gunman who opened fire inside the Capitol building in DC in 1998.

10. The American Chestnut Tree basically went extinct in 1950 due to a blight brought by the Asian Chestnut and through backcrossing is now being revived as the "Restoration" Chestnut.

Why is it important to save american chestnut trees?

You can easily fact check why is the american chestnut endangered by examining the linked well-known sources.

1/4 hardwoods in Appalachia were American Chestnuts (~4 billion trees) until chestnut blight wiped them out during the first half of the 20th Century

An Asian fungus killed four billion American chestnuts in the early 1900s (p. 101) - source