About the beginning of this century, it fell victim to chestnut blight, one of the most disastrous tree diseases. This canker disease was imported from Asia and has spread rapidly throughout New England and the Appalachian region. Occasionally, live sprouts may be found, but these usually canker and die back to the soil line when the trunk reaches 6 inches in diameter. The long, pointed leaves have coarse teeth, each carrying a slender spine or bristle tip and are quite distinctive. Leaves are glabrous and two to three times as long as wide.
Foliage is dark green in color.
The leaf base is acute, or narrowed, toward the base. Its foliage makes it easy to distinguished it from the Chinese and European chestnuts. The showy male flowers are long, slender, whitish catkins opening in midsummer. The fruit is a prickly bur which opens at the first frost, or earlier, and drops two to three shiny, brown, sweet, edible nuts. These were harvested and sold earlier in this century.