The tallest American chestnut tree in North America has been discovered growing in a forest in the Oxford County town of Lovell.

The American Chestnut Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group, said in a news release Tuesday that foresters with the Maine Forest Service and the University of Maine measured the tree at 115 feet in height. That exceeds the next-tallest known tree by 20 feet.

An official measurement of the tree will take place Wednesday afternoon in Lovell. Several scientists and foresters will be on hand for the event.

The tree is located on land bequeathed to the University of Maine Foundation by the family of Douglas Volk, a famous American portrait and landscape painter.

The discovery of the tree is considered significant because the species has been ravaged by an invasive blight. It’s estimated that there are only a few dozen large chestnut trees left in the Maine woods.

Billions of chestnut trees grew in the Eastern forest from Maine to Georgia, but in the early 20th century, a fungal pathogen responsible for chestnut blight was accidentally imported into the United States. By 1950, the pathogen had wiped out the American chestnut as a mature forest tree.


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