This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Identifying Chestnut Types
silvertouringz
Posts: 1
in Plants
Hi all,
Last year I planted chesnut trees and now I want to plant more. So I have one leaf hanging from last year's tree and I'm trying to find out if there are any chestnut gurus who can identify what type of chestnut this is?
I've also posted photos of two types of seeds. Can anyone identify those as well?
Thanks,
0
Posts
The leaf looks like Castanea sativa, sweet chestnut. I don't know about varieties of C. sativa and doubt if they can be distinguished by leaf.
The nuts all look the same to me but I have a small screen here
In the sticks near Peterborough
I live in an area of France where sweet chestnuts grow. The way to tell what sort they are is to open the shell and look at the nut.
Marron (in French) is a large sweet chestnut from a cultivated grafted tree. The nuts are large and round, all in one piece, they are used to make "marrons glacés".
Chataigne is a wild sweet chestnut. The nuts are smaller and divided in three. They are good for making chestnut flour and for mashing up in stuffings.
The above 2 have very, very prickly casings.
The other sort of chestnut is a conker in English, Marron d'Inde, which is toxic, round and shiny.
if the 'shell' was still really spikey then its sweet chestnut, if not spikey or little spikes its horse chestnut, plus horse chestnuts don't have a furry 'tail' on the bottom, they are totally smooth.