Botanical name:                  Castanea sativa

Family:                                   Fagaceae

Common Name:                   Sweet chestnut , Spanish chestnut

Habitat and Distribution:

Probably originally native to W. Asia, from Iran to the Balkans. It has been cultivated for more than 3000 years, and today it occurs in wild or naturalized populations throughout S Europe, N Africa and SW Asia.

The common name probably derives from the fact that the some of the best chestnuts imported into England were grown in Spain.

Spanish chestnut, once established, is tolerant of drought. It does best in full sun, in sandy, well drained soils and is highly tolerant of acidic soils.

Description:

Spanish chestnut is a large and handsome tree that can get 100 ft (30.5 m) tall with a crown spread about half its height. Really old trees may have a trunk diameter in excess of 10 ft (3.1 m). The oblong-elliptic leaves grow to 8 in (20.3 cm) long and have coarse marginal teeth and prominent veins. The flowers are in showy spikelike creamy yellow catkins. The fruit is a prickly burr enclosing 1-5 nuts each 1.3-2.5 cm (0.5-1 in) in diameter. There are numerous cultivars selected for nut quality and adaptation to different regions and growing conditions. The finest cultivars yield a burr with a single large, sweet nut, called a marron in French.

The bark of older trees is dark brown and has a network spiral ridges.

Timber:

The timber is coarse, often spiral grained and pale brown in colour.

Uses:

The timber is used traditionally for drawer sides and back panels in oak furniture.

It is also used for rustic fencing (chestnut paling) and for roofing shingles (the shingles on the green oak structures within the arboretum have been hand cut from old chestnuts which grew in the arboretum) as the high tannin content makes it durable.

For hundreds of years, the sweet, shiny nuts of this tree were a major source of food to the rural poor of southern Europe where they make flour from chestnuts that is similar to wheat flour in protein, starch and fat but lacks the gluten. The Italians made polenta from chestnut flour before the introduction of corn from the New World; before potatoes were introduced, chestnuts were the basic food of the poor in much of southern Europe.

Roasted chestnuts are wintertime favourites.

The leaves, twigs, bark, flower clusters and the spiky cases of the nuts are astringent

Today Sweet Chestnut is used to help control bleeding, aid healing, and for reducing diarrhoea.

A tea from the leaves is used to soothe irritated mucous membranes and relieve the symptoms of whooping cough, bronchitis, and bronchial congestion.

Externally, Sweet Chestnut leaves have been used to treat rheumatic conditions, lower back pain, and stiff joints or muscles.

 

Location within the arboretum:

A pair of trees, planted in 2000, are growing on the Furniture Makers’ Walk.

Many original parkland trees are to be found throughout the arboretum. Many are about 300 years old, with massive trunks and lots of character, most have lost their tops at least once and have shed large branches.

Furniture Makers Trees at The Arboretum - Kew at Castle Howard

 

July 2005

One of the original parkland trees

Bark

Catkins in July

Catkins and fruit - September

Catkins

Leaves and fruit - September

Fruit cases open to reveal the nuts - October

Nuts and the prickly burr

Grain - polished

Grain - natural

Turned vase in figured sweet chestnut

Sweet chestnut shingles, produced by hand from an old tree in the arboretum, used to roof the interpretive arbour at the top of the Furniture Makers’ Walk