[MassChestnutOrchards] American chestnuts on Cape Cod, MA

[Rufin Van Bossuyt]

American chestnut is not very common on most of Cape Cod. The1846 book on the Woody Plants OF Massachusetts states : " It is found in every part of Massachusetts, but does not readily and abundantly ripen its fruit in the immediate neighborhood of the sea". There are some in the woods in the Town of Bourne just north of the Cape Cod Canal.
A few have been planted in various places on the Cape. I transplanted a sprout to our Cape summer home in Harwich Port about 15 years ago. It was blight free until two years ago, I removed it last year as it became very blighted. It had some salt injury each spring from drift from Nantucket Sound.
We had reports of a tree in Harwich and one in Orleans which were confirmed to be American. I was able to pollinate both, the Orleans tree in 2006. Both are now blighted.
We have had other chestnuts reported on the Cape and have found European,Japanese, Chinese and some hybrids especially in the Falmouth area. 
I found several other trees in the vicinity of our Orleans mother tree. I got reports of other trees in the nearby John Kenrick Woods, Town Of Orleans, Conservation Area.
I have found an additional seven trees of six to twelve inches in diameter. Six of the trees have catkins and last year's burs on the ground. One ten inch tree shows no sign of blight, but the others have blight which appears to be hypovirulent.The bark ranges from looking like alligator skin to being mostly smooth with some distortion.
I have found about 100 additional American chestnut trees of various sizes in Kenrick Woods and nearby.The trees have been confirmed to be American. In one area there is a clump of live sprouts, recently dead stems and well weathered stems. There are also well weathered and decaying stems on the ground near the clump. 
Last year I found a seedling of about 12 inches tall. I tied plastic flagging on it so I could find it again. In March I visited the area and I found the flagging but no seedling. About one inch of the seedling stem was inside the flagging knot. I believe a cottontail rabbit ate the stem as it was cut clean and deer tend to make a ragged cut.The rabbit population on the Cape is very high at the present. There are also deer in the area. As of a few days ago ,the seedling has not resprouted. 
The area is not a Pitch pine/Scrub oak forest which covers parts of the Cape but is comprised of Black oak, Scarlet oak, White oak, White pine , some large Pitch pine, Low bush and High bush blueberry and Bayberry. Although the area with the chestnuts is adjacent to Pleasant Bay and near the Atlantic Ocean, I haven't noticed any salt injury on the chestnuts. 

I wonder if we have another area of hypovirulent trees surviving and reproducing (if the nuts aren't eaten)?

Rufin Van Bossuyt 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mrsgale.fates.org/pipermail/masschestnutorchards/attachments/20090618/7192eedc/attachment.html