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Concept
Castanea sativa
Summary
Castanea sativa, the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived deciduous tree, it produces an edible seed, the chestnut, which has been used in cooking since ancient times.
C. sativa attains a height of with a trunk often in diameter. Around 20 trees are recorded with diameters over including one in diameter at breast height. A famous ancient tree known as the Hundred Horse Chestnut in Sicily was historically recorded at in diameter (although it has split into multiple trunks above ground). The bark often has a net-shaped (retiform) pattern with deep furrows or fissures running spirally in both directions up the trunk. The trunk is mostly straight with branching starting at low heights. The oblong-lanceolate, boldly toothed leaves are long and broad.
The flowers of both sexes are borne in long, upright catkins, the male flowers in the upper part and female flowers in the lower part. In the Northern Hemisphere, they appear in late June to July, and by autumn, the female flowers develop into spiny cupules containing 3–7 brownish nuts that are shed during October. The female flowers eventually form a spiky sheath that deters predators from the seed. The sweet chestnut is naturally self incompatible, meaning that the plant cannot pollinate itself, making cross-pollination necessary. Some cultivars only produce one large seed per cupule, while others produce up to three seeds. The nut itself is composed of two skins: an external, shiny brown part, and an internal skin adhering to the fruit. Inside, there is an edible, creamy-white part developed from the cotyledons.
Sweet chestnut trees live to an age of 500 to 600 years. In cultivation they may even grow as old as 1,000 years or more.
The tree is to be distinguished from the horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum, to which it is only distantly related.
Official source
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