Read the full story in Sierra Magazine.
In central Pennsylvania, there are monuments to the dead. Inside century-old barns and farmhouses, ceiling beams and wide floor planks that are straight grained and honey red with age serve as reminders of one of the deadliest epidemics to ever reach American shores. Between 1904 and 1940, some 3.5 billion American chestnut trees, the giants of the Appalachian hardwood forest, succumbed to a fungal blight called Cryphonectria parasitica.
