Chinese Chestnut

Growth habit

Tree

Perennation

Long-lived polycarpic perennial

Native distribution

China & Korea

Location

Cornell Class of 1938 Native Maple Slope, Cornell Class of 1901 Nut Tree Collection

Source of plant

Ian Merwin, The American Chestnut Foundation, Cornell Botanic Gardens, Howard Pidduck

Description

Tree with round habit in youth, developing a rounded to broad-rounded outline at maturity, usuallylow-branched; trees reach 40' to 60' in height with an equal spread. Foliage reddish when expanding, changing to a lustrous dark green in summer, assuming shades of yellow and bronze in fall. Flowers pale yellow or creamy, with heavy, unpleasant odor, monoecious, the staminate in erect, cylindrical catkins, the pistillate on the lower part of the upper staminate catkins, usually 3 in a prickly, symmetrical involucre, borne in a 4" to 5" long panicle in June. Fruit a nut, 2 to 3 enclosed in a prickly involucre which splits at maturity into 2 to 4 valves; seed-grown trees often produce fruit after 4 to 5 years.

USDA Hardiness Zone

5

Special characteristics

food