After more than 15 years of careful nurturing the very rare and endangered chestnut tree Castanopsis concinna fruited for the first time in KFBG’s Oak Seed Garden. The tree can grow up to 25 meters tall and live for hundreds of years. This kind of chestnut tree are severely threatened in the wild because of logging activities for its reddish brown wood which is widely used for making furniture. Due to serious logging and low reproduction power, Castanopsis concinna is an endangered tree species in Hong Kong and under second-class national protection in China.

To avoid that the fruits are eaten before the seeds are mature, every seed is covered by a very spiny shell.  When mature the edible seeds are dispersed by canopy and ground dwelling mammals such as squirrels, monkeys and rodents.