Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa (Fr. Chataignier).
Sweet Chestnut is a deciduous tree with fruits that are widely consumed by man. It is often cultivated.
Chestnuts are mostly eaten in areas where cereals cannot be grown and they are valued as a food source, nicknamed 'arbre à pain' (bread tree) or 'pain à pauvres' (poor man's bread) around the Mediterranean because chestnuts replaced cereals in times of shortage.
Sweet Chestnuts are magnificent trees, with big canopies and rapid growth. They can be up to 35 metres high and can live more than a thousand years. With age the trunk develops a twist and often becomes hollow.
It flowers from mid-June to mid-July, with the male flowers forming long cream honey scented catkins. Pollination is by insects (not wind as was previously believed).
The fruits are enclosed in a spiky husk (Fr. bogue) which dissuades potential attack. Inside the husk there will be 1-3 fruits, in a hard brown skin, which can be harvested in October.
The original distribution of Sweet Chestnut was a narrow band around the northern Mediterranean. But humans have extended the range enormously into Central and Western Europe.
In France Sweet Chestnut is now present everywhere, one of the most important trees in the forests and nearly three-quarters of a million hectares is dominated by the species.
In areas where the soil is calcareous or clay it is not so dominant as these soils don't suit it. It prefers light acid soils. Although it tolerates winter cold while it is dormant, too continental a climate, with late frosts, does not suit it as it leaf buds quite early. It also does not like a dry climate, preferring gentle humidity. With its Mediterranean origins it can support summer drought, so long as it gets sufficient rain at other times of the year, even if it is delivered in large quantities at a time. It needs about 700 ml a year. Those who cultivate it say it needs to be growing in an oven in August and in a well in September.
It needs lots of light and deep cool poor soil. In the wild it grows with bracken, heather and evergreen oak. Once cut it will come back vigorously from the stump.
The original restricted distribution in fact reflects its retreat and refuge from the last Ice Age. Potentially it once had a much larger natural distribution. But the mountain barriers and the presence of more competitive species such as oak and beech probably prevented it naturally reconquering to the north. By the Bronze Age it was present in the Dordogne, and its deliberate cultivation gathered pace in the Middle Ages. From the 16th to the 18th century chestnuts were an indispensible staple for many in France.
The wood is durable and easy to work. For centuries it has been used as firewood, fence posts, vine pickets, mine props, roofing timber, furniture, wainscoting, small sculpted objects such as castanets, and thin strips are used in basket weaving. It has a very high tannin content (higher than oak) and in the first half of the 20th century a lot of sweet chestnut was used for tannin extraction.
Honey from Sweet Chestnut is dark and strongly flavoured.
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