Chinquapin or chestnut: telling the four we grow apart

A chinquapin is a chestnut, one of the small ones. Chinquapins and chestnuts belong to one genus, Castanea, and the surest single test is the bur: a chinquapin’s holds one round nut, and a chestnut’s holds two or three. Allegheny and Ozark chinquapin are small native trees with small, sweet nuts. American chestnut was once a dominant tree of the eastern forest, and the blight now holds it to sprouts. Chinese chestnut, from Asia, resists the blight and bears the largest nuts, but it is not native.

What a chinquapin is

Chinquapin and chinkapin are two spellings of one Virginia Algonquian word, and neither is wrong. Dwarf chestnut is another name for the Allegheny plant. The two native chinquapins were long counted as one species and are now treated as two. Ozark chinquapin leans toward American chestnut in its tree habit, its hairless twigs and the shape and size of its leaves.

All the chestnut species can cross with one another, so hybrids turn up where two kinds grow close. Two oaks we grow borrow the names without being chestnuts. Chinquapin oak has glossy, coarsely toothed leaves that recall a chinquapin’s, and chestnut oak has round-toothed leaves like a chestnut’s. Both bear acorns, not burs.

Telling the four apart in the hand

Start with the bur, then turn a leaf over and feel a young twig. The table runs from the smallest tree to the largest.

One nut to a bur, round in cross section, means a chinquapin. Two or three nuts, each flattened on one or two sides, mean a chestnut. The test has one catch. Hybrids of American chestnut and Allegheny chinquapin are scattered from Tennessee to New Jersey, and they carry one or two nuts to a bur.

The leaf underside settles most of the rest. Both chinquapins are whitish beneath, except some leaves grown in shade. American chestnut is green and hairless on both sides, and Chinese chestnut is fuzzy beneath. Between the two chinquapins, feel the young twigs: hairless on the Ozark plant, finely hairy on the Allegheny. Chinese and American chestnut are told apart most surely by the twig and the bud, as the Chinese chestnut guide shows.

Size, habit and where each grows wild

Allegheny chinquapin spreads by underground stems into thickets in bright sun, a large shrub or small tree of 10 to 25 feet in a yard. It grows wild from New Jersey and Pennsylvania south to Florida and west to eastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma and southern Ohio. It is typically found on dry, rocky or sandy ground: dry pinelands, sandhills, old fields and hedgerows.

Ozark chinquapin grows on rocky upper slopes and ridges in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, often beside chinquapin oak. Before the blight it stood as much as 60 feet tall. In the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, some plants are intermediate between the two chinquapins.

American chestnut grew straight and tall, 50 to 75 feet before the blight, and old trees reached 100 feet or more. Its range ran from southern Maine and Ontario to Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and west to Ohio and Indiana. It grew mostly on well-drained slopes and ridges and in rich coves. Today it survives mostly as stump sprouts under 20 feet.

Chinese chestnut is a broad tree with low branches and a rounded crown, 40 to 60 feet tall and as wide. It is native to China and Korea, not to this continent.

What the blight does to each

Chestnut blight is a fungus from Asia, first found in New York City in 1904, and it had spread through the American chestnut’s whole range by 1950. It enters through wounds in the bark and girdles the stem, which dies above the canker. The fungus dies at the soil line, so the roots live on and send up new sprouts. Look for sunken, split bark speckled with the fungus’s orange fruiting bodies, and for sprouts below the canker.

American chestnut has no resistance. Once infected, a sapling rarely lasts a year, and sprouts are usually killed again before they bear much. By 1960 the blight had killed an estimated four billion trees.

Ozark chinquapin goes through the same cycle. The blight reached the Ozarks in the 1960s and virtually wiped it out. Its sprouts grow to 15 or 20 feet and die again within 4 to 6 years, and few live long enough to flower. Missouri ranks it imperiled.

Allegheny chinquapin is the hard case, because the reports on it disagree:

“Chinquapin has been variously reported as very susceptible to chestnut blight, moderately resistant to chestnut blight, and almost completely resistant to chestnut blight.” (USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System, Castanea pumila)

Whatever the rating, its stems canker and die, the root crown sprouts again, and the plant keeps bearing. Chinese chestnut is the most blight-resistant of the north temperate chestnuts. Its resistance is good but not absolute, so cut out any sunken canker you find.

Choosing one to plant

Zones, size, the years to first nuts and the blight decide most choices. The years to first nuts assume a seedling in the open, and in a crowded woods an American chestnut takes 8 to 20.

The heights for American chestnut and Ozark chinquapin are what a tree reaches before the blight kills it back. Allegheny chinquapin is the smallest and bears youngest. It suckers into a broad clump, so give each plant 12 to 15 feet. A Chinese chestnut grows as wide as it is tall and wants 35 feet from the house and from its neighbor.

Chinese chestnut bears the largest nuts, about an inch across and 30 to 50 to the pound. Chinquapin nuts are small but sweet enough to eat raw, and they are reckoned better eating than American chestnut. Ozark chinquapin’s nut is much smaller than an American chestnut’s.

None of the four sets a crop alone. Plant two or more from different seed, since a thicket of suckers from one root is still one plant. Keep a Chinese chestnut within 200 feet of its partner and an American chestnut within 300 feet. The pollination planner gives the verdict for a pair, or for any count of any of the four. Chestnut species cross readily, so nuts gathered beside a different kind may grow into hybrids.

All four crop best in full sun on well-drained, acid soil, and none takes heavy clay or ground that stays wet. The planting-site check grades a spot for any of them.

For nuts or for the old forest

Chinese chestnut is not native here, so it is a tree for nuts, not for restoration. American chestnut is planted as a living link to the old forest, and Ozark chinquapin as a living piece of Ozark history. The Missouri Botanical Garden and the Morton Arboretum advise against planting American chestnuts that lack resistance, and the garden says the same of Ozark chinquapin. The American Chestnut Foundation encourages growing wild-type trees to keep the species’ genes for future breeding, and it says what a grower can expect:

“While these wild-type American chestnuts are not resistant to blight fungus, they can thrive for many years and produce nuts for harvest and consumption with proper site selection and care.” (The American Chestnut Foundation, American Chestnut Seeds and Seedlings)

Where to start

Blue Whale Trees grows all four from seed and sells each as saplings and as nuts to sow, in its chestnut group. Choose by what you want from the planting:

• Allegheny chinquapin for sweet nuts by the third season in a small yard, a hedge or dry, sandy ground. Zones 5 to 9, 10 to 25 feet.
• Ozark chinquapin for a dry, sunny slope and a rare tree of the Ozarks. Zones 5 to 8, 15 to 30 feet.
• American chestnut for the old forest’s tree and its genes, knowing the blight will likely cut it back. Zones 4 to 8, 15 to 30 feet.
• Chinese chestnut for the largest nuts on a blight-resistant tree. Zones 4 to 8, 40 to 60 feet.

The nuts of all four die if they dry out, so nuts to sow go into the ground in fall, an inch deep under hardware cloth, as planting acorns, nuts and seed explains.

Common questions

Are chinquapins chestnuts?

Yes: chinquapins belong to the chestnut genus and are the small native chestnuts of the East. A chinquapin bur holds one nut, where a chestnut bur holds two or three.

Is it spelled chinquapin or chinkapin?

Both are correct, two spellings of one Virginia Algonquian word that name the same plants. Chinquapin is the older of the two.

Can you eat Allegheny chinquapin nuts?

Yes: they are sweet enough to eat raw and are reckoned better eating than American chestnut. They ripen in September and October, and squirrels, deer, turkeys and blue jays take them too.

Do chinquapins get chestnut blight?

Yes: the blight kills Ozark chinquapin’s stems to the ground again and again, and it cankers Allegheny chinquapin’s stems too. Allegheny chinquapin’s resistance is rated anywhere from very susceptible to almost complete, but its crown resprouts and keeps bearing.