They were among the last of their kind.

They'd survived for over 100 years after many, many others had died.

But in the end, they too succumbed to the inescapable plague.

You can still see the skeletons or the ghosts.

They are magnificent even in their death, like just how big they were.

I'm Dylan Therese and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today we're diving into a kind of apocalypse.

One you might not know about, but that radically altered the landscape of America.

This is the story of the unimaginable destruction of the American chestnut tree, what was once

known as the Redwood of the East Coast.

And it's the story of the group of scientists, academics, and tree lovers who are desperately

trying to bring them back from the edge of extinction.

That's after this.

So the American chestnut tree, its scientific name is Castania Dintata, and the American

chestnut tree was formally one of the most prolific and arguably utilitarian tree throughout

the Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States.

That's Sarah Fitzsimmons and she is the director of Restoration for the American Chestnut

Foundation.

The American Chestnut Foundation works to save and restore this once beloved American

chestnut tree.

So what was the kind of environment that they were in?

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