Riverbanks adding rare chestnut trees to canopy

[depakid]

Two American chestnut trees will join the Amur tigers, Bali mynahs and other endangered species at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden on Earth Day.

Riverbanks, long known as a haven for endangered animal species, also houses rare plant species, such as the Rocky Shoals spider lily and the prairie sunflower. The American chestnuts join the zoo family today in a 10 a.m. ceremony along the tram road leading to the garden.

The trees are part of The American Chestnut Foundation’s project to reintroduce a majestic species that once graced forests throughout the Eastern U.S. A blight brought in on Asiatic chestnuts around 1900 nearly wiped out the species in the next five decades.

The two young trees to be planted today were propagated at the North Carolina Zoo from seeds from one of the few surviving giant American chestnuts in Adair County, Ky. The two trees were given to the S.C. Forestry Commission, which turned them over to Riverbanks. “We want the garden to get a little more out there on things like this,” said Andy Cabe, director of the botanical garden. “We trying to take a more active conservation role.”

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Scientists hope the trees grown from seeds of the healthy Kentucky giant have a genetic resistance to the blight, Cabe said. Even if the zoo trees eventually succumb to the disease, that will be another lesson learned in the effort to keep the species alive.

More: http://www.thestate.com/local/story/758443.html

[cdsilv]

1. There is a live american chestnut tree at ......

645 Dye St., Pensacola FL. In the back yard - at least there was in Jan 2000 when I moved out.....

[depakid]

2. There are a few of them around

Anyone interested might want to have a look at:

THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION

http://www.acf.org/

[NickB79]

3. I've purchased and planted several hybrid chestnut seedlings from Oikos

http://www.oikostreecrops.com/store/product.asp?P_ID=123&PT_ID=73&strPageHistory=cat

I have seedlings growing from two pure American chestnuts found at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, but they just lost a tree a few years ago to blight so I don't have much confidence that they'll outlive me. To guard against that, I threw a few hybrids in to contribute genes to the next generation (they're planted on the family farm, and I hope to propagate and spread them around).