SWEET, OR SPANISH CHESNUT. 



323 



of this tree, even in warmer continental districts, is affected 

 in the same manner, and at as early an age as it is in 

 England or in Scotland. 



By Linnaeus and several other botanists the Chesimt 

 was included among the beeches, G. Fagus, but by most 

 of the moderns it is considered sufficiently characterized 

 to warrant generic separation, the male flowers or catkins 

 of Castanea being long and cylindrical, and the fruit fari- 

 naceous, while Fagus, on the contrary, has the male flowers 

 in globular catkins and the nuts oily. 



The male or barren catkins are numerous, axillary, 

 solitary, and pendulous, of a yellow colour, and nearly as 

 long as the leaves, the flowers in sessile tufts along the 

 common stalk, the stamens numerous and spreading. The 

 fertile flowers are much fewer and on terminal stalks, 

 which lengthen as the fruit advances ; the styles are about 

 six, with long, smooth, upright stigmas. The nuts are large, 

 broadly ovate, generally two, flat on the inner side, and 



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