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Chestnut tree giveaway in NYC aims to bring plant back from brink of extinction
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published May 11, 2025
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New York Restoration Project
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published May 11, 2025
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Scientists have a plan to restore the nearly extinct American chestnut to its abundant glory, and they need New York City residents’ help.
The New York Restoration Project has launched an effort to plant 1,000 thriving American chestnut trees that are hybridized with the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut tree across the five boroughs. There were once more than 4 billion American chestnuts from Mississippi to Maine. Now, there are roughly 230 hybrid trees citywide that are about a decade old in Highbridge Park, Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery.
“The Chestnut was a huge part of our city, our history,” said Jason Smith, director of northern Manhattan parks for the New York Restoration Project. “The American chestnut was sometimes called the redwood of the east because it was our most massive tree.”
In a greenhouse in Sherman Creek Park, 400 germinated seedlings in pots await new homes in June. Any property owner with available greenspace can sign up to get a free seedling.
”Most of the soils of Manhattan and the outer boroughs are very suitable for American chestnuts,” said Sara Fern Fitzsimmons, chief conservation officer at the American Chestnut Foundation. “American chestnuts love well-drained sandy soils. They love rocky soils. And you'll find that across New York City.”
Even a small urban backyard can be a suitable spot for the chestnut tree, as long as it gets sunlight and is not below a power line. The tree can grow to be more than a 100 feet tall, with a diameter of up to eight feet. At around 3 years old, the trees begin bearing edible nuts. Fitzsimmons said chestnut trees are easy to care for.
Under good conditions, the tree can grow 4 to 7 feet per year. Its reddish-brown wood's rapid growth, durability, resistance to rot and light weight made it highly sought after for furniture. Chestnut trees also provided a bounty of food. A single mature tree can produce up to 100 pounds of nuts.
”They were incredibly useful trees,” Smith said. “It's not just the nuts which people and wildlife love; It also is great at sequestering carbon.”
In a greenhouse in Sherman Creek Park in the Bronx, 400 potted germinated hybrid American chestnut seedling await homes.
New York Restoration Project
For more than a century, scientists have been working to create a blight-resistant version of the American chestnut tree. In the early 1900s, the deciduous tree was nearly wiped out by a fungal disease that causes dark sunken areas on the trunk.
The parasitic fungus is spread through airborne spores that are carried by wind and rain, as well as infected pruning tools. The fungus forms a distinctive orange-colored swollen band around the trunk and secretes an acid that kills the tree’s cells.
Scientists believe the blight was introduced by imported Asian chestnut trees that are immune to the disease. The blight was first discovered in the Bronx Zoo.
“It'll land on the cambium layer, or growing and living layer of the tree, and germinate and basically strangle it over time,” Fitzsimmons said. “A canker forms from that fungus and eventually envelops the entirety of the tree and, and it can no longer transmit water and nutrients.”
By creating a hybrid that is mostly American chestnut crossed with a little bit of the disease-tolerant Asian species, scientists hope that they can create a new American chestnut tree that can withstand the devastating blight and repopulate native forests in the coming centuries. Fitzsimmons said they have increased the blight resistance of hybrids by at least 50%.
There is no certainty that NYC’s 230 hybrid trees and the 400 seedlings will not succumb to the fatal fungus, but the older and larger they grow, the more likely they will show signs of immunity, according to Fitzsimmons. Only two of the more than 130 trees growing in Highbridge Park have succumbed to blight so far. The remainder show a strong possibility of immunity. Fitzsimmons said that the best assessment for blight resistance can be made when the tree reaches around 20 years old.
“The trees we've been growing in Highbridge Park are doing great and seem to be free of the blight,” Smith said. “My understanding is that we're just coming out of that threshold [of determining if it’s blight resistant].”
The American chestnut tree is a foundational species, making it an important part of the ecosystem. The early steps in the trees’ comeback have already helped revive insect species like the chestnut bee and chestnut moth.
This story has been corrected to update the abundance of American chestnuts before a blight wiped them out.
A chestnut tree showing signs of fungal blight.
American Chestnut Foundation
“The more of these trees you can plant, the more of that positive ecological benefit you're going to see – even just one in your backyard,” Fitzsimmons said.
Fitzimmons said people should not be deterred by the chance the trees might die from the fungus.
“It's better to have had a chestnut and gotten blight than to never have had a chestnut at all,” Fitzsimmons said. “I would encourage people to go ahead and do that planting.”
The immediate goal is to reach 1,000 trees in New York City that are at least 10 feet tall, which Smith estimates will take about five years. The project will continue to harvest seeds in an effort to build an extended network of New Yorkers who will assist in tracking the chestnut tree's resurgence and expand the restoration effort. Chestnut experts said the greatest barrier to expansion is convincing people to plant seedlings on their properties. More property owners planting trees translates to more American chestnut trees returning to native forests.
“It's a long-term labor of love because it's a very long-term project where we have to take our time and be cautious and only gradually can we start to say, ‘my God, these trees are really surviving,’” Smith said.
Even if a New Yorker can’t adopt a tree, they can still enjoy its canopy of saw-toothed green leaves. The city parks department is working on a Chestnut Trail that takes visitors through Highbridge Park’s grove of more than 130 trees, which is not easily accessed.
“It is amazing to walk into Highbridge Park and sit under a chestnut canopy, and you can look out over the Harlem River and see the Bronx where the blight started, and you do really feel the weight of the history of that and it's deeply optimistic,” Smith said.
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new york city
Health and Science
Rosemary Misdary
Rosemary is health & science reporter. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 646-544-9524.
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