I had never seen an American Chestnut in flower, and I was astonished by the profusion of blooms. And the catkins must be a foot long. The first photo is of the crown, ca. forty feet up. See the bees, who were very happy (e.g., one at the bottom, one at upper right). I can't imagine what the woodlands would have been like when the chestnut was a common tree. So opulent and generous and useful. Emerson (who owned the adjacent parcel in Lincoln) started his Divinity School address by extolling "this refulgent summer." He could have meant something like this.

"They also grow behind my house [at Walden Pond] and one large tree. which almost overshadowed it, was, when in flower, a bouquet which scented the whole neighborhood, but the squirrels and jays got most of  its fruit . . . I relinquished these trees to them and visited more distant woods composed wholly of chestnut."

I just received a note from Barksdale Maynard, the author of a MS on the history of Walden Pond (to be published by Oxford next year). He wrote,

"Thanks very much for sending those images of the chestnut tree. Extremely interesting!!! When we were in Lincoln last week, or 2 weeks ago, I had that exact thought--that these little pathetic struggling sprouts we kept seeing only hint at the wonderful trees that once filled the forests....I have never in my life seen a flowering chestnut tree, so seeing your photos was like catching a glimpse of a passenger pigeon! Thanks so much."

Though this tree shows evidence of the chestnut blight disease, it has survived so far. I think the pollinators hope to include these Lincoln genes in the backcross restoration project of the American Chestnut Foundation.

Diana Abrashkian, the driving force for the ACF's chestnut seedling project going on elsewhere in Lincoln (see below), asked ACF's John Emery about the purpose of the bags. He sent her an interesting response:

 "Ideally the bags are put up about 12 days before the female flowers (the little burs) are maximally receptive to pollination. In fact, at such time the burs are several days from being receptive at all, but they soon become so. Since this is a controlled pollination with a known pollen source and lineage, it is imperative to keep out any random chestnut pollen of any species or lineage that might be floating on the air. On the day of pollination [i.e., two days before these pictures], the bags are briefly removed, the burs are each brushed in a film of special pollen, and  the bags go back on. They might go back on for only the rest of the receptive period, which is only a few days, and thus fulfill their primary purpose. But it is far more practical to leave them up into October because they have several secondary purposes at that time: They mark which burs have been pollinated, and which are controls (deliberately unpollinated). They defend to some extent against direct attack by squirrels before the burs open. And, finally, they contain any nuts that begin to spill out when the burs open, which could be before or after the burs are harvested. So in a way they actually do serve as nut gathering bags! Why 12 days? Only because that is the normal time between anthesis (the whitening of the catkins) and maximal receptivity. And the whitening, which comes from the extension of the anthers, is a quick clear event easily monitored. Since we have to rely on the vagaries of the bucket truck world for our taller trees, we occasionally skip on the prebagging if we are quite sure there is no other chestnut blooming within half a mile, but we put on bags during pollination to give SOME extra measure of protection against randomness, and mainly for the "secondary" purposes outlined above.   So the bags are both contraceptives and snugglies.   J"

Volunteers in Lincoln are doing their part to restore the American Chestnut. On land owned by the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, under the supervision of the ACF's John Emery, they are plantings and growing hundreds of seedlings to contribute their genes to the back-crossing project. This project is trying to give to the American Chestnut the disease-resistance of its cousin, the Chinese Chestnut. (As the chestnut blight came from China, the Chinese Chestnut has natural protection.) This will take patience, for full resistance is not achieved until five generations of selection and backcrossing. These baby trees will never be planted in the wild, but it may be that their more-immune descendants will be:

In July 2003, Diana wrote the following update and plea for help to her volunteers to spread mulch!

<< Dear Chestnut Crew -- You may wonder what's been going on over at the Umbrello Field. Well, [230] chestnut seedlings have now been planted [above photo], after our dedicated Orchard Manager, John Emery of Wayland, cut down a coupla acres of awful weeds and brush. You ought to go and look at our brave little survivors, which are set out in rows, despite the uneven terrain (careful not to fall into the holes/burrows) and are protected somewhat from critter attacks by a yellow plastic mesh sleeve.

We the volunteers are going to need to be in action soon, when John summons us to mulch between the seedlings. As mulch, we've got tons of wood chips, generated by chipping all the brush, etc. We've just got to spread it. I would be interested to know whether you are available only weekends or also during the week. RSVP please, OK?

The site of the nursery/orchard is on [the north side of Route 117 just east of the railroad crossing]. Look for the opening to the field where you can't miss the seedlings in their protective mesh tubes.... More anon, when we have some dates for spreading the good news --- oops, the mulch. Let me hear from you re your availability. Hope you're not all sipping gin & tonics on some island somewhere."

Let's give a cheer for the efforts to restore the beautiful American Chestnut! Of all the twelve research orchards in Masachusetts, Lincoln's chestnuts grew the most their first year (2003) due to the congenial soil. This generation of trees, though, isn't the "final" generation of immune trees, which won't be available for five years or more. Perhaps someday we'll see handsome trees covered with such blossoms and experience, with Thoreau, the rich harvest:

"Now the chestnuts are rattling out. The burs are gaping and showing plump nuts. They fill the ruts in the road, and are abundant amid the fallen leaves in the midst of the wood. The jays scream, and the red squirrels scold, while you are clubbing and shaking the tree. Now it is autumn: all things are crisp and ripe."
 

 Later that October, it was harvest time near Walden Pond. Click here for photos.