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Castanea sativa
Also called European Chestnut, Spanish Chestnut
Sweet chestnut is a large deciduous tree grown for its edible nuts, and it can reach 20 to 35 m tall with a long life. It needs full sun, well-drained neutral to acidic soil, and is reasonably drought tolerant once established.
The sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), also known as the Spanish chestnut or European chestnut, is a species of tree in the flowering plant family Fagaceae.
Growing up to 35 m (115 ft) tall and with trunks over 4 m (13 ft) wide, the tree has long toothed leaves. Its long catkins contain both male and female flowers, the latter producing brownish nuts with spiky sheaths in the fall. The tree can live for hundreds of years.
The species is native to Southern Europe and Anatolia. It is found across the Mediterranean region, from the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is thought to have survived the last ice age in several refuges in Southern Europe, on the southern coast of the Black Sea with a main centre on the southern slope of the Caucasus and in the region of north-western Syria, possibly extending into Lebanon.
Japanese chestnut · American chestnut · Henry Chestnut · Chinese Chestnut · Castanea × neglecta · Ozark chinkapin · Chinkapin · Chinese Dwarf Chestnut · Chestnut
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sweet chestnut by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
