We Won’t Soon Forget
Those of us who just came through the summer, with Brood II of the Periodical Cicadas, are still seeing flagged trees. Tomorrow I will find out the results of pollinating American Chestnuts this spring. A friend and I did the pollination at the height of the Cicada invasion. Slits in some of the branches we worked with were noticed, but the real damage, at that point, was not obvious. We had to pollinate what flowers there were, and keep our fingers crossed.
In The Morning
Keep your fingers crossed for me in the morning too! I’ll be meeting the bucket truck at 10:00 A.M., and I’m hoping that we will be able to come away with at least some seeds from this mother tree to represent this growing season.
Turning Leaves
These are the leaves of an American Chestnut. On my mountan, right now, the leaves are still a bright green, but in a few weeks, they like many other leaves in the forest, will be turning to their autumnal tones. Oh how I love the seasons to change!
2 responses to “Cicadas And American Chestnuts”
Nice post and photos. Good luck today. Any back-cross seed you can gather will help us move toward our goal of restoring this wondrous tree to its proper place in the Appalachian forest.
John, thanks for you kind words! Despite the cicadas, we managed to get some burs off the American Chestnut tree here at the bottom of my mountain. Our work continues!