Once a mighty dominant tree of eastern North American forests, American chestnut has fallen a victim of an introduced fungus causing chestnut blight disease--and large trees have been reduced to shrub size. One can discern here four unsuccessful attempts of the same tree to recover. The fungus lets the tree attain a certain magnitude before it kills its over-the-ground part. Yet its root system keeps sending out generations of stems. Each subsequent attempt yields less and less growth, as the plant's potential is depleted.