This is a chestnut of the Chinese variety (Castanea mollissima). All the hybrids on the Farm were being developed for their resistance to blight. Chinese Chestnuts are resistant, but when they were introduced into America, they brought with them the fungus, Endothia parasitica which was fatal to our own native Chestnuts, especially Castanea dentata. The natives, however, produced the sweetest tasting nut, so attempts at hybridization were attempts to combine a blight-resistant tree with a sweet-tasting chestnut.