Donald Edward Davis, author of The American Chestnut, presses us to think about living beings as places, too, with inherited histories, symbolic meanings, and evolving roles. The site Davis is interested in is revealed in his book’s title: the American chestnut tree. Davis writes that “for residents of Appalachia, where the trees defined the pre–World War II landscape, the loss of the American chestnut also served as a metaphor for the passing of a self-sufficient and forest-dependent way of life.” Here, it is the space left in the wake of the chestnut tree that is of significance; the space is defined by absence. The transition from a rich forest environment to a landscape devoid of chestnut trees represented a profound change, a new space that held a memory of its old occupants.