46 TREES 



table porcupine of spines, almost impregnable. There is 

 no nut so protected; there is no nut in our woods to com- 

 pare with it as food." 



What a disaster then is the newly arisen bark disease 

 that has already killed every chestnut tree throughout 

 large areas in the Eastern states. Scientists have thus far 

 struggled with it in vain and it is probable that ail chest- 

 nuts east of the Rockies are doomed. 



Chinquapins grow to be medium-sized trees in Texas 

 and Arkansas, but east of the Mississippi they are smaller, 

 and east of the Alleghanies, mere shrubby undergrowth, 

 covering rocky banks or crouching along swamp borders. 

 They are smaller throughout, but resemble the chestnut 

 in leaf, flowers, and fruit. The bur contains a single 

 nut. 



The chestnut tree grows large and attains great age, its 

 sturdy, rough gray trunk crowned with an oblong head of 

 irregular branches, hidden in summer by the abundant 

 foliage mass. (See illustration, page 28.) The ugly cripple 

 that lightning has maimed covers its wounds when May 

 wakes the late-opening buds and the leaves attain full 

 size. 



Each leaf tapers at both ends, its length three or four 

 times its width. Strong-ribbed and sharp-toothed, and 

 wavy on the midrib, dark, polished, like leather, these 

 units form a wonderful dome, lightened in midsummer by 

 the pencil -like plumes of the staminate flowers, with the 

 fertile ones at their bases. As autumn comes on the leaf 

 crown turns to gold, and the mature fruits are still green 

 spiny balls. The first frost and the time to drop the nuts 

 are dates that every schoolboy knows come close together. 



When a chestnut tree falls by the axe, the roots restore 



