Wood - Specimen details
| Catalogue Number: 17423 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Image | Plant Name | 159.03 FAGACEAE Castanea dentata | Entry Book Number | 14.1985.2 | |
| Artefact Name | Wood | Vernacular Name | |||
| Iso Country | United States | TDWG Region | United States | ||
| Parts Held | Wood | Geography Description | United States | ||
| Uses | WoodUse: User: Not defined | TDWG use | |||
| Storage | Woods size B | Related Items | |||
| Donor | Forest Service USDA NFs NC | Donor No | |||
| Donor Date | 00/00/1980 | Donor Notes | Krochmal Dr and Mrs Ax0Dx0A | ||
| Collector | Collector No | ||||
| Collection Notes | Collection Date | ||||
| Exhibition | Expedition | ||||
| Number Components | Publication | ||||
| Notes: | Label source: An Environmental Education Lesson: The loss of the American chestnut is an example of man's ability to upset, albeit unintentionally, the balance of nature (ecological balance) that thousands of years of evolution and adaptation have creat, ed. In the 1890s an oriental chestnut blight fungus was introduced to this country, probably on nursery stock from China or Japan. Not discovered until 1904 when it showed up in the NY Ecol. Garden, it has long since spread through the E US so that by 194, 0, only a few isolated chestnut trees survived. While the oriental varieties of the chestnut are immune, hybrid-crosses do not produce trees of the same quality as the American chestnut. Treatment with a hypovirulent strain of the lethal fungus (a variet, y attacking the fungus itself) has recently shown promise in Europe but does not seem to naturally propagate itself in the US. Even if a cure is found or resistant trees evolve, it would take centuries, even with active reforestation programs to once aga, in make chestnut the predominant species in E American forests it once was. This has been a sad and expensive lesson resulting from man's lack of knowledge of natural interrelationships, since the chestnut was a major food species for numerous forms of w, ildlife, its demise has adversely affected dependent wildlife populations. The result of this chain of events in species extermination leads, in many cases, back to man himself. An understanding through Environmental Education of the sensitive balance i, n our interdependent natural world may be required to ensure out own survival as a species. | ||||