Perhaps the most quoted line about a chestnut tree in all of American history is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Under the spreading chestnut tree/The village smithy stands” from “The Village Blacksmith.” In 1842, when Longfellow penned his poem, the American chestnut (Castanea dentate) was in its prime.

By the 19th century, it was one of the most abundant trees in the eastern forests—one out of every four trees was a chestnut—and chestnuts provided homes and food for a host of wildlife, among them the long-gone passenger pigeon, once the most common bird in North America, with a thriving population five billion strong. According to some accounts, chestnuts once lay so thick on the ground that people scooped them up with shovels.

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