I found myself giggling with the exhilaration of each steep, sinuous turn. We descended rapidly down a perfect ribbon of asphalt as if on a roller coaster. We had driven almost 3,000 vertical feet up from Italy’s Mediterranean Sea coast to hike the subalpine spine of the Ligurian Apennines. This hundred mile long mountain chain is one of three main Apennine Chains that thread down the boot of Italy all the way to Sicily. Rising straight off the coast, the mountains are independent of the Alps and are often steeper.
The road, not much wider than a bike path, wound through the bare trees of lush deciduous woods. My son abruptly pulled over and parked under a grove of trees and hopped out. He parked in rust colored leaves in what appeared to be a bed of green sea urchins! The ground was covered in spiny husks about the size of my fist. Ben (my son), always the insatiable hunter-gatherer, set to crunching the husks with his feet. I followed suit and was thrilled that each husk held a shiny brown Italian Chestnut. Whoa, this one had two nuts. We were like children under the Christmas Tree. I soon realized that every husk yielded two to three nuts and in no time we filled a shopping bag with these delectable nuts.
We had awoken that morning in Genoa to a warm chestnut tarte. Isiah had gathered the nuts the day before, made the crust with chestnut flour and the filling with pureed nuts. Numerous times we found chestnuts on our table in Italy, in pasta flours and breads or desserts. The nut is a staple in many parts of Europe. The distribution range is immense. Indigenous chestnuts populate Italy and the Caucasus but they are naturalized (synanthropic) in most of central Europe. When our children were young we stumbled upon an antique chestnut mill, not uncommon in the Apennine foothills. The local Italians brought their nuts to mill and ground flour which was a staple protein in the Italian diet.
Chestnuts were equally important in the diet of Americans. The American Chestnut forest numbered 200 million acres before 1905 and extended from Southern Maine to Georgia with the heartland being Appalachia. The nut yield was astonishingly bountiful and fed Native Americans and settlers, wildlife and livestock. Chestnuts were an economic savior for many people in impoverished Appalachia. The timber, known for straight grain, rot resistance and beauty was prized. One out of four trees in the East was a chestnut. Fast growing to 80 feet tall, “The Redwood of the East” could reach five feet in diameter.
Americans romanticize about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Their aroma still wafts from the street vendors in New York City. I am a professed and proud tree hugger. I surmise that most members of the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association (CVEPA) are tree huggers on some level. Cute story, so why am I melancholic ?
Where are the chestnuts? The day of infamy was in 1904 when Japanese Chestnut nursery stock was unloaded in New York Harbor carrying the chestnut blight. New Yorkers soon watched as the blisters and cankers of this necrotrophic fungus girdled their beloved trees, destroying the cambium and killing the trees. The disease raged north to New England before turning south to Appalachia and destroying 99% of all American Chestnuts. The devastation traveled at 25-50 miles per year completing the death march in the Deep South around 1950. Arborists, farmers and tree lovers call the blight “the greatest ecological disaster in the world” due to the speed and thoroughness at wiping out the species.
This doomsday story seemed to leave little hope as each new seedling quickly succumbed to the omnipresent fungus. Survivors of the 4 billion trees were estimated to be only in the hundreds. Trees are still sprouting from the antique root systems of ancestors and may reach a 3 inch girth before dying. Today, there is promise thanks to The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF), other non-profits, scientists, philanthropists and state forestry programs. Grafting and hybridization involving Chinese Chestnuts (the irony), which have blight resistance, and native stock have been successful. Painstaking efforts are made to ensure that the trees are genetically “as American as possible” while developing a tree that can thrive and withstand the blight. Orchards and experimental forests, notably in Virginia and Maryland, report promising success and believe the American Chestnut will return to its domain. We live in a crucible of cultures, languages, religions and … trees. With benevolent efforts and best science, hope springs eternal like the sapling sprouting from the root system of a bygone time.
Such loss as the chestnut cuts deep into our environmental and cultural well being. Tears are shed for the buffalo, the passenger pigeon and a magnificent tree that most Americans sadly don’t know. Right now, we have the opportunity and the onus to protect our legacy. We are all the stewards of the last unencumbered wild river in Colorado. Current public forums have shown virtual unanimity to protect the Crystal River. Now is the time to unite to protect the Crystal River and secure this legacy for future generations.
Educate yourself on river protection with The Sopris Sun’s Oct. 18 front page story.
To learn more about the Crystal Valley Environmental Protection Association and to support our mission go to www.cvepa.org