Sid Cadwallader spoke of the plight of the American Chestnut (read more about the blight here), and 3 bare root seedlings* were planted in April 2015.  They are doing well; here is a picture of one as of 6/21/15 (on the left)…and 4/24/16 (on the right)…and 5/7/2017 (bottom left)…and 5/13/2018 (bottom right).

*From Chief River nursery.  This is what they say about blight resistance:  “Our pure American Chestnuts come from mature parents who have survived the blight and are producing chestnut seeds.  For now, the possibility of American Chestnuts getting the blight sometime in their life is a real possibility.  These seedlings are grown from chestnuts collected from a large orchard of very old American Chestnut trees which have never displayed symptoms of the blight even though the blight has affected all the other trees in the region.  It is uncommon to see this happen and leads us to believe that the parents may have some natural built in blight resistance.”