A lost icon: The American chestnut and its central place in the eastern landscape

Sanatate

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a quiet stretch of western Massachusetts stands a sycamore so old it was around when the Constitution was signed. It’s awe-inspiring, with branches bigger than the entire trunks of most trees. But it’s also notable because it’s an outlier. It is a tree with a majestic presence that dwarfs the common maples and pines nearby — a living reminder of how much old-growth forest has been lost . In the eastern United States, that rare sense of awe was once supplied in bulk by the