Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993                   TAG: 9307020051
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THEY'RE CHESTNUTS, BUT NOT RARE ONES

After reading a story in Thursday's Roanoke Times & World-News about the rare tree, people from Galax, Salem and Bedford County called to say they had one or two.

Galax resident Rebecca Gatchel took the photograph from the front page and went outside to compare it with the 15-foot tree in her yard. They looked pretty much the same to her, so she called the paper.

"I thought it might be the kind, you know, `Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,' one of those," she said.

Well, Gatchel can roast the chestnuts if she wants, but they're Chinese chestnuts.

Probably.

The newspaper received a half-dozen calls Thursday, and Ginny Webb at Virginia's Explore Park fielded even more.

Henry Heckler, a member of the nonprofit American Chestnut Foundation, said most of the chestnuts in cities and backyards are Chinese chestnuts, which are resistant to a fungal blight that just about wiped out the American variety decades ago.

"The Americans are way out in the woods," said Heckler, a Botetourt County resident and chestnut, uh, nut. Also, the Americans usually don't grow more than 10 or 12 feet before the blight gets them.

The easiest way to tell the difference: the Chinese chestnut has dark, leathery-like, waxy leaves, while the American has a lighter green leaf.

What are the chances that chestnut in your neighborhood is an American? Not very good, Heckler said.

But if you want to be 100 percent sure, send a leaf from your tree and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Heckler at Route 3, Box 177, Buchanan 24066.

Or you can take a leaf and compare it with those of the two mature American chestnuts growing in at Explore.