ABC Red

‘ABC Red’ (C. mollissima) is an open pollinated (OP) seedling selection made by M. Nave from the cultivar Honglizi, the Nanjing Botanical Garden’s red chestnut. The nuts were imported under the USDA permit from Liu Liu of Nanjing Botanical Garden and planted in California in Spring 1994. The tree is very vigorous, and new growth is red. Autumn leaves are also red, and stems and burs are reddish. Its nuts are small (10–12 g), but they have excellent flavor and good pellicle removal. Although ‘ABC Red’ is pollen fertile, it does not have a heavy catkin set. It is a sibling of ‘Liu’ (Anagnostakis and Nave, 2015; Nave, 2017). Seed and scion wood have been circulated ad hoc broadly to growers throughout the United States over the past 20 years, but systematic evaluation of this cultivar has not yet occurred.