A tree, usually 70°—80° but exceptionally 120° high, sending up from the roots numerous small stems sometimes extending into broad thickets round the parent tree, in the forest with a long comparatively slender stem free of branches for more than half its length, and short branches forming a narrow head, in open situations short-stemmed, with a trunk often 3°—4° in diameter, and numerous limbs spreading gradually and forming a broad compact round-topped head of slender slightly drooping branches clothed with short leafy laterals, and branchlets pale green and coated with long soft caducous hairs when they first appear, olive-green or orange-colored during their first summer, and conspicuously marked by oblong bright orange lenticels, gradually growing red, bright reddish brown during their first winter, darker brown in their second season and ultimately ashy gray. Winter-buds puberulous, especially toward the apex, ¾′ to nearly 1′ long, about ⅛′ broad, the inner scales hirsute on the inner surface and along the margins and when fully grown often 1′ long, lustrous, brown above the middle, and reddish below. Bark ¼′—½′ thick, with a smooth light steel-gray surface. Wood hard, strong, tough, very close-grained, not durable, difficult to season, dark or often light red, with thin nearly white sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth; largely used in the manufacture of chairs, shoe-lasts, plane-stocks, the handles of tools, and for fuel. The sweet nuts are gathered and sold in the markets of Canada and of some of the western and middle states. Distribution. Rich uplands and mountain slopes, often forming nearly pure forests, and southward on the bottom-lands of streams and the margins of swamps; valley of the Restigouche River, New Brunswick, to the northern shores of Lake Huron and the southern shores of Lake Superior, and southward to Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, the ravines of Rock River near Oregon, Ogle County, Illinois, Minnesota and northern Missouri; southward passing into the var. _caroliniana_ Fern. & Rehd., differing in its ovate to short-ovate thicker leaves, usually rounded or subcordate at base, and often less coarsely serrate or undulate on the margins, glabrous or rarely densely soft pubescent below (f. _mollis_ Fern. & Rehd.), in the often shorter involucre of the fruit with shorter and less crowded prickles; usually on the bottom-lands of streams and the borders of swamps, New Jersey, and southern Ohio and Missouri to western Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, eastern Texas, and northeastern Oklahoma; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 3000°; probably growing to its largest size in eastern Louisiana. The northern form is occasionally planted in the northern states as a shade and park tree. 2. CASTANEA Adans. Chestnut.