It's a chestnut. The name on the tag doesn't mean anything to me other than suggesting that it's a European (C.sativa) selection. 'gelanty spe' doesn't ring a bell - though the now defunct Bear Creek Nursery used to offer seedlings from a number of Bill Gellatly's selections. Maybe it's a misspelling?

good info lucky p and I agree about the chestnut. Yes they are good to eat, however chestnut has the lowest oil content of any nut so you may find them a little dry. There are some wonderful recipes out there. I'm wondering if the tag is a cryptic shortening of the name i.e. Gellatly special ?

It's a chestnut alright, but the husk and nuts look really small. Is there more than one in the area because they usually need cross pollination to bear nuts?

There is a 'Gellantly Special' at the Corvalis repository, but it is listed as "Corylus hybrid", a selection of European hazelnut. Your's is definitely not a hazelnut. My guess is they put the wrong tag on your chestnut. Those are REALLY small chestnuts, certainly not what I would expect from a selected variety. Maybe a seedling rootstock?

Here is a link that might be useful: Gellantly Special

thank you all for your responses. those were helpful. i had been thinking that it was a chestnut, but the size of the nuts/seeds inside the shell were way too small. there is at least one more tree in the area of the same variety and it also produces the same sized fruit and contents so there is cross pollenation going. the people that sold us this property dealt heavily with the now defunct bear creek nursery so this may have been purchased there. i do think that misspelling is an issue, but that still doesn't make it a hazelnut which the gellaty (gellanty) special is.
i am not real familiar with chestnuts so was wondering if they have very small flower sprays? i seem to remember in another town that i lived in the chestnuts had very showy flowers. these trees do not. what is my best way of improving this tree? if it is a seedling rootstock, is it possible to graft onto it now? any other thoughts on growing chestnuts would be wonderful.

thank you again,
cc

I would say a Chinquapin,

Robert

Maybe the nuts shown aren't filled. Are there any meats inside? With adequate pollination same tree might produce much larger nuts.

The chestnuts you recall having showy flowers may have been horse chestnuts ie Aesculus hippocastanum or other sp., not edible chestnuts Castanea sp. The leaves on yours seem rather narrower and more pointed than the ones I am familiar with. As to the small size of the chestnuts, they need specific conditions to fruit well. Although the trees thrive in the UK the nuts are often dissappointing because we do not get warm enough Summers. That may have a bearing on your trees.

As kiwinut suggested, it may have been mislabeled - but Bill Gellatly did a lot of breeding with different nut tree species, and it may have been one of his chestnut selections - or a seedling of one.
Those nuts look really small - are they completely filled, or just empty nutshells('blanks')?
Chinkapins tend to have one nut per bur, but there are some of the hybrid chestnuts that have some chinkapin genetics several generations back in their ancestry, based on bloom characteristics, bur clustering, and immediate germination of nuts - but the nuts are not necessarily the tiny, little chickpea-sized nuts typical of chinkapins.
Inadequate pollenation may result in 'blank' nuts - you really need an appropriate pollenizer(and not all chestnuts are created equal when it comes to pollenation - some are better than others, some are essentially pollen-sterile) planted within 100 ft or so in order to ensure good nut crop set.

These people have an extensive collection and may be able to assist with identification.

Here is a link that might be useful: Burnt Ridge Nursery and Orchards Chestnut Page

thank you for all your thoughts. i hope i am not getting even more confused on the ID of this tree. i did look up the chinquapin and i do think that there are some similarities so it just may be in the heritage of this cultivar, but i am new to nut trees in general so does my opinion count?
i don't know if i had any true "blanks" as there were seeds inside the spiny shell. they are the little things laying on the leaf in the second and third pictures. they had a lot of soft "fur" on them and the shell was also lined with the "fur". i didn't try to break open the seeds as they felt very hard like a nut should. i haven't ever met a chestnut that was furry before. have any of you?
i just might have a short season for chestnuts, but that seems strange as according to a map of the nut trees on this property i have 4 of them counting this one. 1 horse chestnut (i didn't see any showy flowers), and 2 sweet chestnuts (i haven't seen anything produced on them, yet) and all of the trees were purchased locally too by the same records. i would hope that local nurseries would stock something that would grow here. the trees are pretty close to each other too so unless i need to get more pollenators involved... :)
the tree was evidently purchased in 1993 would age of the tree play in to the small fruit?

cindico,
We recognized the seeds/nuts - but they don't look as though they 'filled' - and this would be typical for blooms that did not get adequately pollenated; burs would form, and contain empty nutshells, but they would lack 'nutmeats' - the tasty edible part that we typically grow chestnuts for. Try cutting into a couple of the nuts and see if there's anything inside.
Even a seedling chestnut, planted out in '93, should be mature enough to be producing nuts.

lucky_p, i did as you suggested and the seeds are dry of nutmeats. they actually had the same "fur" on the inside of them that was inside the shell. i guess it is a pollenation problem. outside of buying bees, is there any other way to get a better nut?
thank you,
cc

If you have other chestnuts in the orchard within reasonable distance from one another - provided they're not all the same variety - as they reach maturity and begin blooming, you should start to see better nut production. You said the other trees didn't have any burs - watch next spring to see if they all produce blooms.
This, too, though, is provided that at least one of the others is a good pollenizer; as I indicated previously, some are much better than others - for example, 'Colossal', which is highly valued in some areas for its nuts, is an abysmally poor pollenizer and can't be counted on to set nuts on anything else.

Georgia native Chinquapin Tree, "bush chestnut"

http://www.ediblelandscaping.com/CareGuides/Chinquapin.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: Chinquapin Tree