Chinquapins
America's forgotten chestnut
Chances are, if you’ve stumbled across this article, you’re familiar enough with the meteoric fall of the American chestnut in North American forests and the work being done to restore them to the landscape. You might have heard about another, lesser-known chestnut, the chinquapin, and that’s how you stumbled across this piece. The chinquapin chestnut has a very interesting, unique history— one worth exploring and a future that looks bright as it finds itself in a unique position as new interest in tree crops has sprung up over the past decade.
The chinquapin is endemic to the eastern and southeastern United States from Pennsylvania to Florida, eastern Texas, southwestern Missouri, and west-central Kentucky. It includes shrubs and trees that occupy dry, open, usually disturbed sites from near sea level to ≈1400 m in altitude. Older botanical literature divides chinquapin into several distinct species, including C. ozarkensis, C. pumila, and C. alnifolia. Recent reviews of the literature and studies of chinquapin populations conclude that chinquapin is a single species (C. pumila) represented by regional varieties.1
The funny thing about old botanical texts is that sometimes they see something we miss in the modern era. For example, if you look at the “Handbook of the Northern States & Canada East of the Rocky Mountains” from 1908, the range for chinquapin is a bit wider, stretching into Massachusetts and even New Hampshire. This underscores a big reason why these old texts are worth digging through— because things don’t exist anymore in a place doesn’t mean they never did.
This is backed up by the work of Joey Shaw at the University of Tennessee, who collected leaves from chinquapins across the East Coast to identify chinquapins through genetics. Using chloroplast DNA, he was able to ID trees far outside of the ‘traditional’ range of the Ozark chinquapin, including as far as Florida and even Virginia. This is further validated by news articles discussing chinquapins as far back as 1895 being documented as measuring 4 feet in diameter in Virginia, for example.2
The chinquapin, a Castanea species, is quite similar in terms of nut profile to the American chestnut (Castanea dentata), but unlike the American chestnut which was once part of the canopy in eastern North American forests, the growth habit of the chinquapin is often thought of today as more of a shrub or understory tree. Historically, it is believed that the chinquapin evolved from the American chestnut. The Ozark chinkapin is considered to be the ancestral type and less evolved than the Allegheny chinkapin, C. pumila var. pumila, because of its lack of stoloniferous growth, its arborescent habit, adaptation to older stages of succession and to areas of higher soil fertility— all of which we will cover briefly below.3,4 Despite the wide range of C. pumila across eastern North America, the Ozark chinquapin is restricted only to the Ozark plateau in Arkansas.
Both American chestnut and Ozark chinquapin usually grow as single, upright stems in the sub-canopy.5 In contrast, Allegheny chinquapin is more likely to consist of multiple, leaning stems with no clearly defined leader, giving the plants a bushier appearance. Older texts prior to the chestnut blight shine some light on this difference, often referring to mature Ozark chinquapins as reaching 60 feet or more in height, likely due to fire suppression after colonization.6 Unlike the American chestnut, however, the Ozark chinquapin appears to have existed primarily on the forest edges, often on poorer soils and rocky ledges, typically at a density of about 1 per acre.7
Further, the harvesting periods and the blooms for these three (including the American chestnut) go in order, from the Allegheny blooming in the late spring to the Ozark in the late spring/early summer, to the American chestnut in the early summer. The Ozark chinquapin was, prior to blight and contrary to how we view them today, part of the canopy of our forests alongside the American chestnut, but often occupying the drier, sandier uphill regions of the landscape alongside other trees like the post oak. In 2012, a study was done to assess the downed timber of the chinquapins in a forest in Arkansas to reconstruct what a pre-blight forest might have looked like— the profile is shown below:
The remains of these trees in the forest also give some interesting insight as well; they’re often not straight, and there are a few reasons for this. These “jogs” are often called ‘bayonet joints’ by arborists, and are evidence of shoots dying. The reason for this is simple— the chinquapin will grow throughout the year and will often not harden off quickly enough for the cool winter weather which is quickly ushered in around the Ozarks, causing the terminal buds to die, and in turn, causing a lateral bud to assume its place.
While we have focused primarily on the recent history of the chinquapin, primarily the Ozark chinquapin, there’s reason to believe that the science is not settled on the diversity of Castanea. Researchers in Alabama, are making the case for a new species, Castanea alabamensis, which doesn’t match either Ozark or Allegheny’s particular traits.8 Castanea alabamensis was considered to be a separate species as recently as the 1920s but has since been rejected. Its rediscovery validates much of how it was described a century ago, and much like Ozark, it tends to grow with one main trunk as opposed to a bushier form. This assessment is confirmed by the genetic make-up of these three chinquapins; researchers found the three to have two genetic “clusters”; one of which was Allegheny and the other compromised of both Ozark and Alabama. The takeaway is that there’s still much to be learned about the chinquapins that occupy our landscape today!
Backing up a bit, the longer history of the chinquapin—an Algonquian word—is difficult to pin down. Despite the role of chestnuts and the harvesting of chinquapins, little evidence exists of how they were used or if any special care was made for these sweet nuts. Extensive records often show the chinquapin as being harvested, but little more.
Captain John Smith, for example, commented that:
In March and April they live much upon their [fishing] Weirs, and feed on Fish, Turkeys, and Squirrels and then as also sometimes in May and June they plant their Fields and sett their Corne, and live after those Monthes most[ly] of[f] Acrons [sic], Wallnutts, Chesnutts, Chechinquamyns [chinquapins] and Fish, but to mend their dyett, some disperse themselves in smale Companies, and live upon such beast as they can kill, with their bowes and arrowes. Upon Crabbs, Oysters, Land Tortoyses, Strawberries, Mulberries and such like; In June, July, and August they feed upon the rootes of Tockohow berryes [wild potatoes], Grownd-nuts, Fish, and green Wheat [corn], and sometyme upon a kynd of Serpent, or great snake of which our people like wise to eate.9
This is about the extent of most records, so it is a bit difficult to pinpoint how the land was managed for these trees to thrive. While a coppicing species, they handle fire poorly, but their quick nut production after shooting back from their collars would allow them to produce nuts for a decade or more between burnings. Our most recent evidence suggests that much of the East Coast experienced prescribed burns on a 2-10-year cycle would allow the chinquapin to provide some crops without being a fire-resistant species.10
We do have a few isolated studies on chinquapins in the precolonial landscape— one in particular that is worth discussing. disjunct population in Sussex County, Delaware, on the coastal plain near a Nanticoke settlement on the coastal plain near a Nanticoke settlement.11 This site is unique in that it hosts both chinquapins that are significantly separated from any other clusters, but the site is also home to another incredibly rare species, the Box Huckleberry Cluster, a species that no longer produces fertile seeds and is only capable of propagation through its very slow cloning through the process of root extension, and only 100 estimated clusters exist.12 Margret Pooler from the National Arboretum said (based on this plant’s size) Native Americans likely transplanted this clone to this location about 2,000 years ago, and that one of the two patches in the area likely originated from a patch in southern Kentucky!
The researchers also found several long lines of evenly spaced American chestnut coppices, prickly pear, pitcher plant, and yucca clusters, extensive patches of lowbush berries, the previously mentioned chinquapin, and maypop, all nestled within the extensive remains of white oak, hickory, and pine forest settings. As though the site isn’t unique for all of the insights it provides us about how the landscape was managed in the past, this site’s chinquapins are also unique because of their size, having been reported over thirty feet, fitting more similarly to the description of Ozark or Alabama rather than Allegheny, which would have significant implications for a national trade network for chestnuts.
Like the honey locust populations found in the Northeast alongside Cherokee settlements, these trees were moved by indigenous people because of their value, a value we are only beginning to relearn in modern times. The example above offers one of many ways these trees were likely managed; historically we can suspect that chinquapins likely remained in thickets, similar to the example above, outside of the typical burning cycles of much of the landscape, which would make much more sense. Burning tends to cause chinquapins, particularly Ozark chinquapins, to send up massive amounts of shoots, often creating a dense monoculture of chinquapin, which would be considered of significant value, as long as they were kept long enough to produce nuts. Again, the biggest challenge here is that we have little documented evidence of how these trees were managed.
Our Living History
While the chinquapin has continued to provide sweet chestnuts on the landscape, as we stated earlier, it is not immune from chestnut blight, or the fungal disease Cryphonectria parasitic. Today, American chestnut sprouts are generated from the stumps of mature trees and seedlings established before the introduction of blight, but sexual reproduction has been almost eliminated because sprouts are killed by blight before they can become large enough to bear fruit. A few breeders have access to the unique stands that have survived the blight, such as Experimental Farm Network, which offers breeders one way to continue experimenting with restoration work around the American chestnut.
If you walk through the forests of eastern North America today, you will invariably find these stumps and corresponding sprouts of many of the chestnuts that have been since lost to blight. While chestnuts sprout from the ground where they might have been exposed to fire, cutting, or in this case, the fungal blight, the method of destruction can significantly impact the longevity of the stump’s survival. The small sprouts of chestnuts you might stumble across in the woods are a glimpse into the past, but not as many often think. According to research in the 90s, less than 5% of the original, pre-blight canopy chestnut trees had living root crown sprouts about 60 years after the appearance of blight in Massachusetts.13 What this means is that the sprouts we see of American chestnut today are a rare survivor from its century-long war with the chestnut fungus or are from the seeds of those final trees that were overcome with the blight.
In contrast about 20%, and locally more than 75,% of root systems of large pre-blight chinquapins in Arkansas were alive about 45 years after blight was first introduced, based on that same research project. What this showcases is how, despite both species being impacted by the fungus, chinquapin shows significantly more long-term resistance. However, important to note is that blight occurs at much higher frequency in dense stands of chinquapins and has been noted at up to 70% in these types of conditions.
The single distinct difference between sprout regeneration in chestnut and chinquapin is that chestnut sprouts appear to always generate new root collars whereas chinquapin root collars remain alive almost indefinitely. Occasional destruction of chestnut stems by blight does not seem to significantly influence clone survival despite minimal blight resistance in chestnut. However, chinquapin appears to have more natural resistance to blight than chestnut. This prolongs the lifetime of active cankers and increases the long-term impact of blight by providing sources for the infection of basal shoots stimulated by the infection. Such a process may explain the large number of dead chinquapin sprout clones found in Arkansas, where the Ozark chinquapin with its more American chestnut growing pattern is common and a smaller but significant number of dead chinquapin clones found in Virginia.
While we’ve focused primarily on the Ozark chinquapin because of its unique character in comparison to the more common Allegheny— or American— chinquapin, the Allegheny’s unique shape places it within a slightly different environment than the Ozark. Today, it is often found and used by native plant specialists in thickets, alongside other plants that thrive in dry, sandy soils. Its bushy shape provides nesting sites for birds and its quick regeneration after fire, alongside its shape and nuts, makes it comparable to our native hazelnut in function.
There are many first-hand accounts of the chinquapin being managed in mono-crops, which may have been the byproduct of initial burns to create the nut thickets. From Neamathia and his nut orchard with the Creek upon discovery by colonists to Thomas Nuttall documenting chinkapin in the Kiamichi mountainous of Southeastern Oklahoma in 1819 to the disjunct population in Sussex County Delaware, the chinquapin represents a forgotten narrative of the landscape around us.
What makes the chinquapin so valuable is its quick growth rate and nut production. Despite their small size, the Allegheny chinquapin has been shown to produce similar volumes of nuts in comparison to the previous records of the American chestnut.14 Because of this, and unlike the American hazelnut, which has struggled due to Eastern Filbert Blight, the chinquapin has significant potential as a scalable crop and silvopasture-type tree.
The Future of the Chinquapin
We’ve outlined the historic footprint of the chinquapin, but climate change is quickly shifting where it is best suited to survive. Fortunately, research has been underway and is pointing to a bright potential future, as long as we’re willing to help it overcome the barriers of disease and travel distance. Using model projections, by 2100— assuming little is done to combat climate change in any meaningful way— sites with suitable habitat across all scenarios were identified and suggested as restoration targets, most notably lowland New England and high-elevation Southern and Mid-Atlantic Appalachian regions. While research has been focused primarily on American chestnut, the climactic conditions required by Castanea are remarkably similar. What is of particular importance is the right soil conditions— that is, sandy, not overly wet soils.15
Much like the American chestnut, the chinquapin has a diverse array of uses, with rot-resistant timber, nuts as food, and tannin-rich bark for dying fabrics and leather.16 The loss of the chestnut on the landscape has had cascading effects on our knowledge and relationship with these plants, and it will be a long and slow path to rekindle these relationships.
Fortunately, folks are working to forge new relationships with these plants by searching for the reins left behind by future generations. The Experimental Farm Network is busy propagating a cultivar they’ve called “Auzzie’s Giant Chinquapin”, named after a hobby breeder in Tidewater, Virginia who had been working on selecting the largest nuts (C pumila) to propagate. He also worked to develop machines to make them a viable commercial crop prior to his passing in 2012 at the age of 85.
While this is just one example of how breeders had worked to improve the quality of these nuts for human use, there’s untold breeding projects to be rediscovered across the country. Researchers like Eliza Greenman and more have played key roles in trying to save these projects from the dustbins of history, and there’s much more work to be done.
Other folks, like the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation, are working to preserve and improve genetics and restore much of the foundational knowledge about the tree and its uses, including experimental projects to replicate supposed uses of the tree, including bow-making, fabric dying, and more.17 The Foxfire Series explained the uses of the wood for bow-making, but little else remained to explain why or how it was used. There are stories similar to this to many of our native species here in North America, and it is up to folks like ourselves to humbly attempt to bring them back to life.
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Johnson, G. P. 1985. Revision of Castanea sect. Balanocastanon (Fagaceae). J. Arnold Arbor. 69: 25-49.
OCF 2020 Conference- Historic Range of the Ozark Chinquapin, 43:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCIe-aaBa_Y
Johnson, G.P. 1988. Revision of Castenea sect. Balanocastanon (Fagaceae). J. Arnold Arboretum 69:25–49.
Dane, F, Lang, P., Huang, H., & Fu, Y. (2003). Intercontinental genetic divergence of Castanea species in eastern Asia and eastern North America. Heredity, 91(3), 314–321. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.hdy.6800300
Dane, F., Hawkins, L. K., & Huang, H. (1999). Genetic variation and population structure of Castanea pumila var. ozarkensis. Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, 124(6), 666–670. https://doi.org/10.21273/jashs.124.6.666
Hepting, G. H. 1974. Death of the American chestnut. J Forest Hist. 18: 60-67.
Paillet, F. L., & Cerny, K. C. (2012). Reconstructing the development of two Ozark Chinquapin (Castanea ozarkensis) stands in the pre-blight forests of Northwest Arkansas1. The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society, 139(2), 211–225. https://doi.org/10.3159/torrey-d-11-00058.1
Perkins, M. T., Zhebentyayeva, T., Sisco, P. H., & Craddock, J. H. (2021). Genome-wide sequence-based genotyping supports a nonhybrid origin of castanea alabamensis. Systematic Botany, 46(4), 973–984. https://doi.org/10.1600/036364421x16370109698524
Smith, John 1986 A Map of Virginia (1612). In The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, Volume 1, edited by Philip L. Barbour, pp. 119–289. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Dixon, C. M., Robertson, K. M., Ulyshen, M. D., & Sikes, B. A. (2022). Pine Savanna Restoration on agricultural landscapes: The path back to Native Savanna Ecosystem Services. Science of The Total Environment, 818, 151715. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151715
Mellin, Glenn, Truitt, Lenny. (2013) “Box Huckleberry and Chinquapin Clusters: Ancestral Native Plantations?”, Unpublished. https://archaeobotanicals.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/bhcclusters.pdf
Mellin, Glenn, Truitt, Lenny (2017) “RITUAL LANDSCAPES: A JOURNAL SYNTHESIS”, Unpublished. https://mellinarboretum.weebly.com/chapters.html
Paillet, F. L. (1993). Growth form and life histories of American Chestnut and Allegheny and Ozark Chinquapin at various North American sites. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 120(3), 257. https://doi.org/10.2307/2996990
Payne, J. A., Miller, G., Johnson, G. P., & Senter, S. D. (1994). Castanea pumila (L.) mill.: An underused native Nut Tree. HortScience, 29(2), 62–131. https://doi.org/10.21273/hortsci.29.2.62
Noah, P. H., Cagle, N. L., Westbrook, J. W., & Fitzsimmons, S. F. (2021). Identifying resilient restoration targets: Mapping and forecasting habitat suitability for Castanea dentata in Eastern USA under different climate-change scenarios. Climate Change Ecology, 2, 100037. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecochg.2021.100037
https://ozarkchinquapinmembership.org/history-of-using-chinquapin-for-dye/
https://ozarkchinquapinmembership.org/chinquapin-bow/