Erie County Chestnut is Uncommon Survivor of Blight

By Tom Henry, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

Mar. 31–Until recently, few people knew Ohio had an American chestnut tree that had survived last century’s devastating fungal blight.

Few people outside of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, that is.

The closely guarded secret was held under wraps for seven years until Ohio DNR Director Sean Logan, now in his second year as the agency’s director, revealed it at an Ohio Lake Erie Commission meeting near Oak Harbor on March 19.

“This is quite significant,” Mr. Logan said before going out to a 465-acre bog known as Sheldon’s Marsh in Erie County, halfway between Sandusky and Huron to get a first-hand look at the 89-foot beauty.

Many people today don’t understand the sentimentality that surrounds American chestnuts, because they’ve never seen one. It was once the most dominant and valuable hardwood in this part of the country.

Mark Rey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for natural resources and environment, called American chestnuts the “redwood of the East” during a 2006 visit to Sylvania, a phrase that has been uttered by many others.

Four billion American chestnuts were killed by the blight in the first half of the 20th century, a disease called one of the biggest forest catastrophes in North America’s history.

American chestnuts grew up to 120 feet and once accounted for about 25 percent of the eastern forests.

The fungus was detected in 1904 in New York City trees. By 1950, some 3.5 billion American chestnuts — nearly 90 percent of them — were dead.

The tree is “kind of a link to our past,” said Steve Harvey, an Ohio DNR district preserve manager for Sheldon’s Marsh.

Mr. Harvey said it’s hard to tell how old the American chestnut at Sheldon’s Marsh is without cutting it down to count tree rings or drilling it for core samples, neither of which the agency has any interest in doing.

Biologists estimate it’s about 80 years old, he said.

The tree’s existence and the location were kept secret to protect both the tree and an eagle’s nest in a tree about 30 yards away, Mr. Harvey said.

It’s not the biggest tree at Sheldon’s Marsh, where some now have a canopy 100 feet off the ground. But it’s the largest and healthiest-known American chestnut left in Ohio.

And it appears to benefit from its seclusion.

Dan Balzer, Ohio DNR forest health specialist, said second-growth American chestnuts have sprouted up elsewhere but died before reaching 40 feet in height. The fungal blight is still out there, he said.

The disease hasn’t found the American chestnut in Sheldon’s Marsh, probably because there aren’t other species there known to be capable of passing it along.

“That’s not what you would think of as a traditional site [for an American chestnut]. Consequently, it is able to escape the fungus,” Mr. Balzer said. “Right now, it seems to be thriving.”

Mr. Harvey theorizes the marsh became an unexpected host site when an American chestnut seed drifted to it via Lake Erie floodwater.

The tree is “in an area where it obviously wasn’t planted,” he said, explaining that it’s well off a trail that the public is allowed to hike along.

Gary Obermiller, an Ohio DNR regional manager, said the agency’s new chief of Natural Areas and Preserves, Steve Maurer, is eager to let people know about the tree.

“He realized this was a very special tree,” Mr. Obermiller said.

Stay tuned if you want to see it. The Ohio DNR is planning a special hike for the public this fall, once the marsh has dried up. The date has not been determined, Mr. Harvey said.

“There’s so many people interested in it now. I’ve probably run into 50 people on the trail just this week who’ve asked about it,” he said.

Mr. Balzer said it’s in a good spot, given the circumstances.

“It’s so neat this tree was found on property that was under protection and will remain under protection,” he said.

Scientists have spent years trying to develop a blight-resistant hybrid, by crossing an American chestnut with an Asian chestnut.

Such hybrids have been planted at the White House, in Columbus, and on the Sisters of St. Francis campus in Sylvania.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.

—–

To see more of The Blade, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.toledoblade.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.