chestnut blight -- very, very off topic

[Schlobin at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 6601

There was in fact a chestnut blight, which is why they used to be cheap and 
sold on the street, and now are very expensive.....

Chestnut 
name for any species of the genus Castanea, deciduous trees of the family 
Fagaceae (<A HREF="http://www.bartleby.com/65/be/beech.html">beech</A> or oak family) widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. 
They are characterized by thin-shelled, sweet, edible nuts borne in a bristly 
bur. The common American chestnut, C. dentata, is native E of the Mississippi 
but is now nearly extinct because of the chestnut blight, a disease from Asia 
caused by the fungus Crypthonectria parasitica. The American chestnut was an 
important source of timber. Efforts are being made to breed a type of 
American chestnut resistant to the disease, by crossing it with the 
blight-resistant Chinese and Japanese chestnuts, in order to replace the old 
chestnut forests. The dead and fallen logs were long the the leading domestic 
source of tannin. Chestnut wood is porous, but it is very durable in soil and 
has been popular for fence posts, railway ties, and beams. Edible chestnuts 
are now mostly imported from Italy, where the Eurasian species (C. sativa) 
has not been destroyed. The <A HREF="http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/chinquap.html">chinquapin</A> belongs to the same genus. Chestnuts 
are classified in the division <A HREF="http://www.bartleby.com/65/ma/Magnolio.html">Magnoliophyta</A>, class Magnoliopsida, order 
Fagales, family Fagaceae.   
    
    



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