Near this site in 1904 the chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) was introduced accidentally into North America from Asia. It was described from the zoo locality by W.A. Murrill, Director of the New York Botanical Garden. By that time the fungus already had been shipped all over the eastern seaboard on Japanese chestnut trees and offered for sale by many of the mail order nurseries in the southern New York and northern New Jersey area. Within 50 years the disease had changed the appearance of the United States eastern hardwood forests dramatically. The American chestnut (Castanea dentata), once a major forest tree that was widely planted as a shade and ornamental tree, was reduced to stump sprouts throughout most of its range.  Loss of the nuts had severe effects on wildlife species that relied heavily on them for food, and nuts no longer were available for roasting and stuffing holiday turkeys. Of far greater economic consequence was the loss of a supply of wood that was highly resistant to rot and had been used extensively for furniture, interior paneling, poles, and fencing. Research on the development of resistant genotypes of chestnut trees and the introduction of virus-infected strains of the fungal pathogen at first provided hope that the American chestnut might be restored to its former prominence. In 1912 the Plant Quarantine Act had been enacted by the United States Congress to reduce the chance of similar catastrophes ever occurring again, and legislation has helped to some extent. Although biological control and plant breeding programs were working to bring American chestnut trees back to their full stature, in 1993 an illegal importation of Asian chestnuts brought with it an insect, the Oriental Chestnut Gall Wasp (Dryocosmus kuriphilus) that truly threatens the American chestnut with extinction.   --M. Blackwell