CHESTNUT (Castanea dentata, Borkh.). 60 to 100 feet. Sym metrical, thick-topped tree with oblong head above stocky trunk, covered with gray-brown bark, in scaly flat ridges, between shallow fissures. Wood coarse-grained, brown, weak, but durable in contact with soil. Used for posts, railroad ties, and for furniture and inside finish of houses. Buds plump, set askew on the brown twigs. Leaves alter nate, 6 to 8 inches long, narrow, tapering, saw-toothed, strongly ribbed, short-stemmed, turning yellow in fall. Flow
ers moncecious, July; staminate in yellow, spike-like catkins, 4 to 6 inches long; pistillate solitary or few in cluster at base of new shoot, green, prickly, with spreading, forked stigmas. Fruit 4 or 3 smooth thin-shelled nuts in spiny bur that parts when ripe into 4 valves. Dist.: Southern Maine to Michigan; south to Delaware and Indiana; on mountains to Alabama and Mississippi. Valuable for shade and ornamental planting, for lumber and nuts.