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Timothy Daly

A few months ago, I was visiting the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers where I observed several large chestnut trees growing near the main building. These are Chinese chestnuts, which are common to our area. Their presence reminded me of a closely related tree, the American chestnut, which used to cover the landscape throughout the eastern United States.

When the early European colonists came to America, they observed forests that were full of these magnificent trees. They grew to a large size, often more than 100 feet in height and up to 50 feet in diameter. They produced white flowers in the spring, which gave the landscape the appearance of being covered with snow. The trees were estimated to have composed 25 % of the eastern forests and covered more than 200 million acres. Sadly, these wonderful trees were nearly wiped out by a deadly fungal blight in the first half of the 20th century.

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Timothy Daly is the Agricultural and Natural Resource agent with UGA Extension Henry. He can be contacted at 770-288-8421 or tdaly@uga.edu.

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