Chestnut blight

Chestnut blight is a lethal disease of chestnut trees caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, native to East Asia and introduced into North America and Europe in the early 1900s. The fungus is a necrotrophic pathogen that kills bark and cambium and is estimated to have killed around four billion American chestnut trees in North America during the first half of the twentieth century. European chestnut and American chinquapin are also susceptible, though many European trees now carry a hypovirus that weakens the fungus and reduces tree mortality there. The fungus can also infect oaks, red maples, sumacs and hickories without typically killing them. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/