Castanea sativa Mill.
Family: Fagaceae
Hardwood
Country of Origin: Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor

The tree:
The sweet or Spanish chestnut, while a native of the eastern Mediterranean, has long been planted in northern Europe and has been in Britain since Roman times. Hugh Johnson gives an interesting account of one particular chestnut tree in that part of the world, as follows: “The colossal hulk of a tree ever recorded still
flourished in the last century on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna. It was 64 m round, counting all the fragments and supported a small industry of nut gatherers, who in their simple Sicilian way eventually killed the goose by cutting of its branches to stoke the fire to cook the nuts. At 2500 or 3000 years of age (having been an old tree when Plato lived in nearby Syracuse) it finally succumbed to souvenir-hunters.”

The wood:
A feature of chestnut grown in Italy and France is its high heartwood content. Put in another way, it has a narrow sapwood. Since the heartwood is durable in the ground this makes it a very useful species for vineyard poles, among other things. The heartwood of chestnut is light brown in colour — not unlike oak. Although it does not have the large medullary rays of the latter, it is nevertheless a very attractive timber, with prominent growth rings and a moderate-to-course texture. It is a slow drying wood which requires careful handling in this department; but it machines, glues, and finishes well. It also has a low shrinkage, is stable in service, and, as already mentioned, it has durable heartwood.