Hacker News Reader

I actually saw the last surviving American chestnut tree in Pennsylvania.

It was a lone tree on a hillside for miles around.

Those nuts too are still being harvest for biogenetic rework.

Last surviving mature tree. There are vast numbers of saplings all over Appalachia. They die quickly as they mature, but the roots are alive and keep producing new sprouts. As the article points out, in some areas where the coal companies took all the soil away (and therefore the fungus spores), the chestnuts can reach significant size before they get infected and die, but they always will get the blight eventually.

I sometimes daydream about finding a mature American Chestnut while in the PA woods. I know it'll never happen, but it's fun to think about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com