Sweet Hart Chestnut

Castanea dentata x mollissima

The Sweet-Hart Chestnut is a cross between a American sweet chestnut Castanea dentata and a blight resistant Chinese chestnut Castanea mollissima. In 1904 on the grounds of the New York Zoological Garden. A blight was first discorved on a American sweet chestnut tree by Herman W. Merkel, he was a forester at the Bronx Zoo. This tree contained a pathogen named Endothia parasitica.