Easily confused with other: Beech Trees [a plant of similar name]

Uniquely identifiable characteristics

Distinguishing Feature : The extremely spiny golf-ball-sized fruit with edible (after cooking) Sweet Chestnut within.

No relation to : Horse-Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) [trees with a similar name but belonging to differing family (Sapindaceae)]. The fruits are similar (called 'conkers' for Horse-chestnut) but in the case of the latter are not edible even after baking.

Sweet Chestnut is a Monoecious plant with separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The male flowers are in short catkins, the female mostly inconspicuous.

An ELLAGITANNIN Tellimagrandin II (aka Eugeniin) is an Ellagitannin. At its heart is a glucose sugar surrounded by five galloyl units, the two on the upper right being joined by a bridging bond. It is almost identical to the ellagitannin Potentillin, the only difference being that it lacks the bond joining the two lowest galloyl groups. It is also present in the non-native Clove plant (Syzygium aromaticum). The dimer of Tellimagrandin II is Cornusiin E which is found in Fringe Cups (Tellima grandiflora), from which it obviously derives its name. Cornusiin E parallels the dimer of Potentillin called Agrimoniin, the two are almost identical, apart from two missing bridging bonds between the galloyl groups at the bottom of the diagram.