Common Name:
Chestnut
About 12 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, furrowed bark; terminal buds absent. Leaves alternate, usually conspicuously toothed, 2-ranked. Male flowers in erect or ascending catkins, female flowers usually at the base of male catkins. Fruit in clusters of 1-5, involucre or "burr" covered with branched spines, splitting open in 4 sections. Native to temperate regions of eastern North America and southern Europe and east to China and Japan.
Castanea: Latin for chestnut.
Pronunciation:
kas-TAH-ne-a
Family:
Fagaceae