Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh. AMERICAN or SWEET CHESTNUT. Ontario:
(as C. vulgaris var. americana) "... very common at
Queenston and Niagara Falls, and westward in the forest along Lake Erie and
Detroit River to Lake St. Clair. (Macoun.)" Macoun (1886). (As C. vulgaris
var. americana), "near DeVeaux College. Lewiston. Queenston,"
Day (1888). Ontario, Queen Victoria Park (as C. americana
Michx.), Panton (1890). Ontario, Niagara Park System (as C. sativa
var. americana), Cameron (1895). (As Castanea vulgaris),
"in the vicinity of the Falls," Day (1901). Ontario: one mile S of
Queenston, high land, Miller (675), Aug. 18, 1952, Heimburger (1955). "It
is extremely difficult to find a healthy specimen of this tree, due to the
ravages of chestnut blight, a fungus disease that has destroyed the majority of
Chestnuts in the United States and Canada. A number of trees that are still
standing, however, have sent up new shoots from the base of the trunk and these
are being watched to see if they will survive or succumb to this malady,"
Hamilton (1943). DeVeaux College woods, "none observed," Eckel
(1986).
Ontario: Queen Victoria
Park, Cameron, [ca.1890] (NFO).
Range: swOnt. Status: Rare in Ontario,
endangered in Michigan. Protection: Protected by law in Indiana, Argus &
White (1977). No reports for this species have been made, and no evidence has
been found for its occurrence on Goat Island, even though before the chestnut
blight it formed an element in local forests where it was "rather
common" and grew on "morainic slopes and ridges, also in sandy soil
in the wooded tracts along Lakes Erie and Ontario", Zenkert, 1934. Hooker
and Gray made no note of its occurrence on the island in 1877, but Day (1901)
reported its presence in the Niagara flora.
*Castanea
mollissima Blume CHINESE
CHESTNUT. New York: Goat Island in the Niagara River, central
part of the island, east of old maintenance building in loop of vehicular
bridge. With Juglans regia. P. M. Eckel s.n. July 29, 2001 (BUF).