A Pocketful of Chestnuts

A pocketful of chestnuts was the title of an Italian comedy directed by Pietro Germi. Good and healthy chestnuts have to make it through several pest attacks—and not just plant pathogens. Also for this reason, during the past few years, in Italy, which is one of the main producer and consumer, chestnuts have become rare and expensive. Perhaps the most famous pathogen is the cortex cancer agent, Cryphonectria parasitica, first found in 1904 in New York, from where it quickly spread to North America. By the end of 1920 it had reached the Pacific coast, where it destroyed the American chestnut forests. In Europe, the disease was reported in Belgium in 1924, in Germany in 1927 and in 1938 in Italy, where it found ideal conditions in the chestnut groves of the Apennines and the Alps, before spreading to many other European countries and regions of Asia.