Welcome Back, Old Friend



American chestnut seedling. J. Schaeffer

We planted two American chestnut seeds this spring in the Children's Garden, and we're happy to report that both have sprouted and are growing like a... well...like a weed, but  a good weed.  These little sprouts mark the return of an old friend.  The American chestnut was once the most important tree of the Eastern North American hardwood forest. One fourth of this forest was composed of native chestnut.  At Willow Grove Farm, the barn was constructed in the 1800s of durable, rot-resistant chestnut planks.  A chestnut disease was brought to North America in 1904 on a tree from another country and the disease spread like wildfire through America’s forests.  By 1950 the American chestnut had tragically disappeared.  Many years of scientific research have given us these new chestnut trees which we hope will be able to resist the disease.  Welcome back to our forests, Old Friend!  Thank you Linda, a newly-minted Maryland Master Naturalist Intern, for contributing to this entry.