Chestnut Photos--Summer 2005
(photos provided by Joe Schibig unless otherwise noted; captions are by Joe Schibig)

While I was hunting chestnut trees at Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee,
Mother Nature painted a beautiful rainbow in the cloudy sky; luckily, I had my camera and captured the  rainbow arching across the sky with the rain-drenched mountains in the background. (photo on July 17, 2005)

Summer chestnut bur (photo by Katie Maiella, 2003)

Seth' s big chestnut stump--Seth is 6 ft. 4 inches tall.  This photo was taken  in June, 2005 in  southeastern Kentucky (photographer not known). It looks as if the base might exceed 6 feet in diameter and note the hollow condition of the stump.  Almost all large chestnut stumps we find today are hollowed out by decay. The tree has been dead for at least 65 years (nearly all large American chestnut trees were killed in Kentucky by 1940)--

Zack and Mark Vance find chestnut sprouts at Fall Creek Falls (left)  and on Short Mountain (right).  The latter is interesting as twin sprouts emerge from a large old stump perhaps four feet in diameter. (Photos by Mark Vance on July19-20, 2005)

A mammoth chestnut stump was discovered by Mark Vance on the Cumberland Plateau near Monterey and is 7 feet in diameter at the base.  Joe Bowling and sons are in the picture and are the son and grandsons of the property owner, Houston Bowling.  This is the largest chestnut stump reported in Tennessee west of the Smokey Mountains. Although giant chestnut trees once grew on this site, no survivors were found.  (photo by Mark Vance, July 22, 2005)

Yet another huge chestnut stump, about 6 ft. in basal diameter, was discovered by Mark Vance in the Center Hill Lake area of the eastern Highland Rim.  (photo by Mark Vance, Aug. 9, 2005)

Mark's helpers, Zack and Samantha, stand next to a nice blight-free American chestnut tree they found at Old Stone Fort State Historical Park in south central Tennessee. (photo by Mark Vance, July 26, 2005)

On Black Mountain a few miles southeast of Crossville, Tennessee, a black beetle rests on a chestnut leaf. (photo on July 31, 2005)

While inventorying chestnut trees along the Cumberland trail on Black Mountain, Jack Torkelson and I came upon a rustic spring house. (photos on July 31, 2005)

Outside :                                                                                                                            Inside:

This Alleghany chinkapin, which is a shrubby relative of the American chestnut, lives in the shade of  white pine, oak, hickory, and sourwood trees at Cumberland Mountain State Park near Crossville, Tennessee. (photo on July 31, 2005)

A big-tall, fast-growing American chestnut was found four years too late on the western Highland Rim in Houston County, Tennessee.  Foresters Mike (left) and John (to the right of the tree) told Mark (front) about this tree.  Fred, the property owner (just to the left of the tree), said the tree was in prime condition four years ago; unfortunately, the blight has since debilitated the tree to the point that meaningful nut production is doubtful.  Still, this is a remarkable tree.  John used an increment borer to age it--this big tree (16 inches dbh and 75 feet tall) was 32 years old. Even if we are not able to pollinate the tree, we intend to clone (graft) it.  (photo on Aug. 2, 2005)

Mark Vance ran into a rattlesnake last summer while hunting chestnut trees; this summer it was a hornet's nest.  While he was in hot pursuit of another American chestnut, he came dangerously close to this nest in a mountain laurel thicket.  (photo by Mark Vance, Aug. 9, 2005)

No, not an American chestnut--this is an Allegheny chinkapin, a close relative, and it was loaded with fruits, each bur containing one nut.  This was one of three fruiting chinkapin specimens occurring on a moist, sunny, site in Overton county, which was strip-mined back in the 1920s.  Mark Vance (right photo) and I found over 50 small American chestnut trees on sandstone-based soils in this area of the Cumberland Plateau close to Monterey, Tennessee.  Chinkapin shrubs have been absent or less abundant than American chestnut trees in most of the areas we have visited in the state.  (photo on Aug. 12, 2005)

From the left, Joe Schibig, Sandra Cumming, and Lloyd Fly gather data on a fruiting Allegheny chinkapin at Cumberland Mountain State Park.  At this park, we  found more chinkapin specimens than American chestnut trees.  On the Cumberland Plateau, we have been finding chinkapin mostly on sunny, dry, sandy, south to west-facing sites. (photo by Mark Vance on Aug. 15, 2005)

Chestnut investigators, Lloyd (left), Mark (middle), Sandra (right) and Joe (behind the camera) came upon a pair of mating timber rattlesnakes at Frozen Head State Park in the Cumberland Mountains region of Tennessee.  Lloyd nearly stepped on the snakes as we were walking on a trail in search of American chestnut trees.  Mark also had a close encounter with a rattler at Mammoth Cave last summer.  (photos on Aug. 17, 2005)

 This fruiting Allegheny chinkapin was one of many we found along a sunny ridge at Fall Creek Falls State Park (Cumberland Plateau region).  Notice the beetle-killed Virginia pine in the background.  The death of many such pines in this park opened the canopy  for  numerous chinkapin shrubs allowing  them to grow fast and get enough sunlight to reproduce  by nut production.  At least 10 percent of them were fruiting.  We think that many of the chinkapin specimens we gathered data on were recent seedlings. Only about one percent of the chinkapin specimens we have found showed symptoms of blight.  In this park, it appears that the chinkapin has been less injured by the blight than its close relative, the American chestnut. (photo on Aug. 18, 2005)

Members of the Tennessee Chapter  of The American Chestnut Foundation relax near a waterfall after taking a hike in the beautiful Savage Gulf Natural Area. (photos on Aug. 20, 2005)

                   photo by Paul Sisco

Greg Weaver shows hikers some chestnut specimens.

photo by Paul Sisco

Clint Neel gets GPS coordinates of a  chestnut sprout.                                       A chestnut sprout grows beside an old stump.

photo  by Paul Sisco

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