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National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture

Chestnut Blight

Scientific Name

Cryphonectria parasitica (Murrill) Barr (formerly known as Endothia parasitica) (ITIS)

Common Name

Chestnut blight, chestnut bark disease

Native To

Asia (Anagnostakis 1997)

Date of U.S. Introduction

First discovered in 1904 (Anagnostakis 1997)

Means of Introduction

Introduced on nursery stock imported from Asia (Anagnostakis 1997)

Impact

Fungal disease of chestnut trees (Castanea spp.) that virtually eliminated mature American chestnuts (Castanea dentata) from the U.S. (Griffin 2000)

Current U.S. Distribution

Widespread throughout the U.S.

Chestnut blight
Image use policy

Chestnut blight symptoms

Credit

Photo by Robert L. Anderson; USDA. Forest Service

Source
Invasive.org.

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Spotlights

  • Scientists Work to Create Blight-resistant Chestnut With Hopes of Restoring Tree to America

    • Apr 25, 2023

    • USDA. Forest Service.

    • American chestnut once was a keystone species in our nation’s eastern forests, where it influenced community structure and ecosystem processes. It spanned more than 200 million acres from Maine to Georgia and as far west as Illinois. Exotic pests from Asia, notably the chestnut blight, decimated it about 100 years ago. Its demise altered forest ecosystems and reduced species diversity.

      A coalition of federal agencies, states, nonprofits, universities, and private citizens have been working to create a blight-resistant chestnut. The American Chestnut Research & Restoration Program at the State University of New York has developed one such tree, known as Darling chestnut.

Distribution / Maps / Survey Status

  • Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE)

    • USDA. FS. Northern Research Station.

    • The Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE) is an interactive web tool which provides detailed spatial data describing pest distributions and host inventory estimates for damaging, non-indigenous forest insect and disease pathogens currently established in the U.S. The database is maintained as a joint effort of Purdue University, the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Protection.

Videos

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Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Partnership
Federal Government
International Government
State and Local Government
Academic
Professional
Citations