# Allegheny Chinquapin (Castanea pumila)

> A shrubby native cousin of the American chestnut, Allegheny chinquapin ripens one sweet nut per small bur and bears within a few years of planting.

Also called American chinquapin, Allegheny chinkapin, chinkapin, dwarf chestnut, common chinquapin, dwarf American chestnut. Category: Chestnuts & Chinquapins. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/allegheny-chinquapin/

![Allegheny chinquapin (Castanea pumila) branch in late May, insects on its pale catkins over toothed leaves backed with white](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/allegheny-chinquapin-2-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Blue Whale Trees*

## Facts

- Type: Small tree
- Mature height: 10 to 25 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 5 to 9
- Grows wild in: Dry uplands and sandy barrens
- Native range: 23 states and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC), north to [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), south to [Florida](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=FL) and west to [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX) ([Alabama](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AL), [Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR), [Delaware](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DE), [Florida](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=FL), [Georgia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=GA), [Indiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IN), [Kentucky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KY), [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA), [Maryland](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MD), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [Mississippi](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MS), [Missouri](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MO), [New Jersey](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NJ), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [North Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NC), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Oklahoma](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OK), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [South Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=SC), [Tennessee](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TN), [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX), [Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VA), [West Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WV) and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC))
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Dry, Average
- Growth rate: Medium
- Flowers: May to July
- Fruit: Nuts, September to October
- First crop: 2 to 3 years (a crop in the third season)
- Mature spread: 20 ft
- Traits: Edible, Wildlife value, Drought tolerant, Rare, Bears young, Erosion control
- Sold as: Saplings, Nuts

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their [height and age](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/reading-a-nursery-listing/index.html.md) are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Allegheny chinquapin is one of the few chestnuts native to North America. Chinquapin and chinkapin are two spellings of one Virginia Algonquian word, and neither is wrong. The nuts are sweet enough to eat raw and reckoned better eating than American chestnut, but the plant is self-incompatible, so one on its own sets almost none. Accounts of its blight resistance disagree, but what growers see is consistent: stems canker and die, the root crown sprouts again, and the plant keeps bearing. We grow it from seed, nothing grafted or cloned. Planted on disturbed ground, it helps stabilize the soil. Perfect for a wildlife hedge or a small-scale nut planting.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Allegheny chinquapin bears young. Seedlings of one selected strain carried nuts by their second or third growing season, with substantial crops by the fifth year.

Six-year-old plants of that strain yielded 1,200 to 1,500 nuts a year. Growth is medium, roughly a foot and a half of new height a year in youth on an average site by our growth estimator's model. In a yard expect a large shrub or small tree of 10 to 25 feet, though it can reach 30 feet. Many plants stay lower and shrubby, which fits its other name, dwarf chestnut. Each spiny bur is an inch to an inch and a half long and holds a single shiny brown nut up to about three quarters of an inch long. Squirrels, chipmunks, deer, wild turkeys, black bears, blue jays and woodpeckers take them. The nuts ripen in September and October.

It grows wild from New Jersey and Pennsylvania south to Florida and west to eastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma and southern Ohio, on dry, rocky or sandy ground and well-drained terraces.

## How to grow Allegheny Chinquapin

Allegheny chinquapin needs full sun to crop well. Give it acid, fast draining ground, sandy loam or thin rocky upland. Avoid heavy clay and any place where water stands after rain. Plants sucker into a broad clump, so allow 12 to 15 feet between them.

Set out bare-root or potted saplings while dormant, late fall to early spring. Handle the taproot gently, keep the root flare at grade, backfill with the soil you dug and skip amendments. Mulch three inches deep, a hand's width clear of the stem. Nuts root in autumn rather than spring as chestnuts do, so sow them an inch deep the fall they drop, under hardware cloth against rodents. Fall-sown seed germinates above 90 percent, seed dried over winter below 50.

Water weekly through the first three summers in dry spells, renew the mulch, and cage or tube the stems against voles, rabbits and deer, which browse this plant hard. Established plants take drought well and rarely need pruning.

Allegheny chinquapin does not pollinate itself, and a thicket of suckers from one root is still one plant, so plant two or more from different seed. Blight cankers stems in time, after which the crown resprouts and bearing carries on. Weevils take some nuts. Expect a crop in the third season.

## Sources

- [USDA Fire Effects Information System: Castanea pumila](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/caspum/all.html)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Castanea pumila](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/castanea-pumila/)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Castanea pumila](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CAPU9)
- [USDA NRCS Plant Guide: chinkapin, Castanea pumila](https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_capu9.pdf)
- [USDA NRCS Plant Fact Sheet: Allegheny chinkapin, Castanea pumila](https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/factsheet/pdf/fs_capu9.pdf)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual: Castanea chapter](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Castanea.pdf)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: Alleghany chinkapin, Castanea pumila](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=24)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Castanea pumila](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.145121/Castanea_pumila)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Castanea pumila](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233500327)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Castanea pumila](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/castanea/castanea-pumila/)
- [USDA NRCS PLANTS Database: Castanea pumila](https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/CAPU9)
- [The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition: chinquapin](https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=chinquapin)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Chinquapin or chestnut: telling the four we grow apart](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/chinquapin-or-chestnut/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for dry, sandy soil: the plants of barrens and dunes, and how to grow them](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-and-shrubs-for-dry-sandy-soil/index.html.md)
- [Chinese chestnut: size, growth rate, bark, and how it differs from the American chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/chinese-chestnut/index.html.md)

## Related

- Other chestnuts and chinquapins (Castanea) we grow: [American Chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-chestnut/index.html.md), [Chinese Chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/chinese-chestnut/index.html.md), [Ozark Chinquapin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/ozark-chinquapin/index.html.md)
- Plants that share its sun and soil: [Dwarf Hackberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/dwarf-hackberry/index.html.md), [Flatwoods Plum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/flatwoods-plum/index.html.md), [Gum Bumelia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/gum-bumelia/index.html.md) and [Farkleberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/farkleberry/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [Pignut Hickory](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pignut-hickory/index.html.md), [Mockernut Hickory](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/mockernut-hickory/index.html.md) and [Black Oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-oak/index.html.md)
- Same size, similar character: [Ozark Chinquapin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/ozark-chinquapin/index.html.md), [American Chestnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-chestnut/index.html.md), [Cockspur Hawthorn](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/cockspur-hawthorn/index.html.md) and [Green Hawthorn](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/green-hawthorn/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Allegheny Chinquapin, add ?species=allegheny-chinquapin with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 5, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin&zone=5&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Allegheny Chinquapin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Transplant planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/transplant/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin): whether Allegheny Chinquapin can be moved and what the move takes, the root ball, its weight, who can move it and the months, as Markdown at that address (add caliper= or height=, month= 1 to 12 and soil= sandy, loam or clay)
- [Tree growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Allegheny Chinquapin as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Allegheny Chinquapin is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Allegheny Chinquapin needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 2 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=allegheny-chinquapin:2
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Allegheny Chinquapin where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Allegheny Chinquapin goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=allegheny-chinquapin&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Allegheny Chinquapin flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=allegheny-chinquapin