American chestnuts are almost extinct this holiday season [Video]

It’s been a very long time since vendors sold the American chestnut on city sidewalks. It’s no longer the variety whose smell some people associate with Christmas time as it wafts from street carts. Because it’s virtually extinct.

But memories of the American chestnut’s legacy keep resurfacing for the researchers who want to bring it back. They describe its wood that paneled the homes and schoolrooms of their grandparents, or the photographs of men on the street corners of old Baltimore, with hot bags of nuts cooked on charcoal.

“You can feel that connection to a place, and that connection to utility, and the connection to the importance that this tree played in virtually every aspect of the lives of people,” said Sara Fern Fitzsimmons, chief conservation officer with The American Chestnut Foundation, which is working to restore the tree to flourish as it once did.

Fitzsimmons said that will …