American Chestnut: The Life, Death & Rebirth of a Perfect Tree - paperback

Susan Freinkel is an established national science journalist who writes regularly about botany, science and medicine for Discover, Smithsonian, Reader's Digest, Health, Organic Style, Real Simple, the New York Times and other major publications. Her first book is American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree, which asks the questions: What happens when a species vanishes? Once gone, can it be brought back? American Chestnut explores these timely questions through the story of one of this country's most important native trees, at least until the early 20th century, when it was obliterated by an imported plague known as chestnut blight. Billions of trees died in what has been described as "the worst ecological disaster to hit North America since the Ice Age." Now, a handful of hardy optimists are working to resurrect the tree, some relying on age-old breeding methods and others on modern gene-splicing techniques. Susan recently received one of journalism's most sought-after fellowships, an Alicia Patterson Foundation grant, to support her work on the book.