CHA1>. CV.

cohyla'ceje. casta'nea.

1987

abundant on the Apennines , especially at Valombrosa, and also betweenFlorence and Bologna , and we cannot help noticing a circumstance mentionedby Sir T. D. Lauder, as having struck him when in Italy , and with whicli wewere ourselves very much pleased when there; viz. that these chestnut treeson the Apennines are generally scattered over a surface resembling- the green-sward of a British lawn. According to Dr. R. A. Philippi, Castanea vesca does not appear to be wild in any part of Etna , but always to be cultivated.“ We noticed it,” he says, “ on the sides of Mount Zoccolaro, at a height of3900 ft.; and Gemmellaro is said to have traced it as high as 5100 ft.; butthis is probably a mistake, arising from an erroneous calculation of the altitude.On the south side of the Alps, the chestnut trees reach to 2500 ft., and on thePyrenees to 2800 ft. Etna is celebrated for the great age and colossal dimen-sions of its chestnut trees: the noted Castagno di Cento Cavalli has a cir-cumference near the root of 180 ft.; the Castagno di Santa Agata, 70 ft.; andthe Castagno della Nave, 64 ft. Their stems, however, attain no great height,but soon branch off above the ground; and, in regard to the first-mentionedone, it seems probable to me that not one stem, but many, shoot from thesame root; for there are now 5 individual trunks separate from each other;and it is a general custom in Sicily , when these trees attain a diameter of about1 ft., to cut them down just above the root, when a number of new shootsare thrown out, which shortly become trees again. M. Brunner is of thesame opinion, as is stated in his Excursion through the East of Liguria , Elba ,Sicily, and Malta.” (See Comp, to Bot. Mag., vol. i. p. 90.) In North Ame-rica, the sweet chestnut is found as far as lat. 44° n., in New Hampshire ;where, however, it is less common than in Connecticut, New Jersey , andPennsylvania . It is most abundant in the mountainous districts of the Caro-linas and of Georgia, and abounds on the Cumberland Mountains, and in EastTennessee; preferring, in all these countries, the sides of mountains, or thefertile gravelly soils in their immediate vicinity.

History. The sweet chestnut is generally said to have been brought toEurope by the Greeks, from Sardis, in Asia Minor , about 504 B. c. It wasfirst called, in Greek, Sardianos Balanos, the Sardis nut; afterwards DiosBalanos Lopimon, from its being considered to bear some resemblance to thewalnut, except in the smoothness of its inner bark. The name of Castanea wasgiven to it from Kastanea, the name of a city in Pontus, in Asia ; and alsoof one in the Vale of Tempe, near the river Peneus; in both which placesthe chestnut grew in great abundance, being a native of the former locality,and having been first planted in Greece in the latter, whence it was sent,in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, to Rome . It is evident that the Romansreceived the chestnut from the Greeks, as they called it both Castanea andGians Sardiana. Theophrastus mentions that, in his time, Mount Olympus was nearly covered with chestnut trees; and Pliny enumerates eight kinds thatwere known to the Romans in his day. Pliny adds that chestnuts were groundinto meal, and made into bread, by the poor. These were of an inferior kind,to which he gives the name of populares; and he adds that there was anothersort, which were generally boiled, and which were called codivce. He like-wise says, — “ Under the common name of nuts, we comprehend, also, chest-nuts, though they partake rather of the nature of acorns; except that theyhave a larger and more prickly covering. It is surprising that we set so littlevalue upon a fruit which nature has taken so much pains to preserve frominjury. Sometimes three nuts are found in one of these prickly covers. Thefirst skin of the nut is flexible; but the second has a bad taste in the mouth,like the skin of the walnut; therefore care should be taken to remove it.Chestnuts are better roasted than cooked in any other manner.” {Nat. Hist.)One of the largest and oldest chestnut trees in the world is that on MountEtna , above mentioned, and which is called Castagno di Cento Cavalli,because, as it is said, Jean of Arragon, on her road from Spain to Naples,visited Mount Etna , attended by her principal nobility, and was caught in aheavy shower; when the queen, and a hundred cavaliers, took shelter underthe branches of this tree, which completely covered them, and saved them

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