Chestnuts!

[redbird]

There's a stand of young American chestnuts on a ridge in Georgia.

"There's something about this place that has allowed them to endure the blight," said Nathan Klaus, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who spotted the trees. "It's either that these trees are able to resist the blight, which is unlikely, or Pine Mountain has something unique that is giving these trees resistance."

Experts say it could be that the chestnuts have less competition from other trees along the dry, rocky ridge. The fungus that causes the blight thrives in a moist environment.

The largest of the half-dozen or so trees is about 40 feet tall and 20 to 30 years old, and is believed to be the southernmost American chestnut discovered so far that is capable of flowering and producing nuts.

The American Chestnut Foundation hopes to breed these trees into its existing project of crossing the very few known surviving American chestnuts with Chinese chestnuts to produce blight resistance, and then back-crossing to get as close to a pure American chestnut as possible.