The chestnuts are a group of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus Castanea, in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.[1][2][3]
The name “chestnut” is derived from an earlier English term “chesten nut”, which descends from the Old French word chastain (Modern French, châtaigne).[11] The French word in turn derives from Latin Castanea (also the scientific name of the tree), which traces to the Ancient Greek word κάστανον (sweet chestnut).[12] A possible source of the Greek word is the ancient town of Kastanea in Thessaly.[5] The town probably took its name, though, from the trees growing around it.[13] In the Mediterranean climate zone, chestnut trees are rarer in Greece because the chalky soil is not conducive to the tree’s growth. Kastania is located on one of the relatively few sedimentary or siliceous outcrops. They grow so abundantly there that their presence would have determined the place’s name.[14] Still others take the name as coming from the Greek name of Sardis glans (Sardis acorn) – Sardis being the capital of Lydia, Asia Minor, from where the fruit had spread.[15]
The name is cited twice in the King James Version of the Bible. In one instance, Jacob puts peeled twigs in the water troughs to promote healthy offspring of his livestock.[16] Although it may indicate another tree, it indicates the fruit was a local staple food in the early 17th century.[13]
These synonyms are or have been in use: Fagus Castanea (used by Linnaeus in first edition of Species Plantarum, 1753),[17] Sardian nut, Jupiter’s nut, husked nut, and Spanish chestnut (U.S.).[18]
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