Castanea pumila Seeds | Allegheny Chinquapin
LATIN NAME: Castanea pumila
COMMON NAME: Allegheny Chinquapin
Plant Profile
Allegheny chinkapin is the chestnut for people who have given up on chestnuts. It is a shrub or small tree, rarely more than ten metres and often half that, with the same long, toothed, chestnut-like leaves and the same spiny burs, but with a habit that keeps it below the worst of the blight. Each bur holds a single nut, smaller than a sweet chestnut and sweeter than almost any of them, with a thin shell that peels away easily. It grows in dry woods, sandhills and thickets from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Texas, on acid, sandy or rocky ground, and it flowers in early summer with long, fragrant catkins that fill the air with a heavy sweetness. It is one of the sweetest nuts of the American flora, and it is almost unknown outside foraging circles.
Science & Biotechnology
Castanea pumila is a diploid, 2n = 24, and it is closely related to the American chestnut, with which it hybridises where their ranges overlap; some populations in the southeast are of hybrid origin and are difficult to assign. It differs in being a smaller plant, flowering later, and holding a single nut per bur rather than two or three. It is susceptible to chestnut blight, Cryphonectria parasitica, but because it is small and often multi-stemmed, it survives as a resprouting shrub and continues to flower and fruit at a low height, which is why it has not disappeared in the way the American chestnut did. Its nuts are rich in starch and low in fat, and they are dispersed by squirrels, chipmunks and jays. The species is also a host for several native moths.
Uses & Benefits
The nuts are the main use, and they are excellent: sweet, thin-skinned and easy to peel, eaten raw, roasted or boiled, and traditionally gathered in quantity by families in the southern Appalachians and the Gulf states. They are also a serious wildlife food, taken by deer, turkey, squirrel and bear. The wood is hard and durable and has been used for fence posts and tool handles, but the plant is rarely large enough to be a timber tree. In the garden it is a large shrub or small tree for a wildlife planting, a hedgerow or a dry bank, grown for the catkins, the autumn nuts and the golden foliage. Its smaller size makes it a practical chestnut relative for a garden that cannot house a full-sized tree. It is not a substitute for the Chinese chestnut in commercial orchards.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh nuts in autumn, two centimetres deep, and leave the pots outdoors for winter; the nuts are recalcitrant and must not dry out. Protect them from rodents, which will find them within days. Germination is in spring, and the seedling develops a taproot, so use a deep pot and transplant young. Grow it in full sun in acid, well-drained soil, and keep it free of grass competition for the first three years. Plant out at thirty to forty centimetres, and cut back the top by a third to encourage a multi-stemmed, blight-tolerant habit rather than a single trunk. Water through the first two summers, then leave it alone. It will resprout after blight kills a stem, and the resprouts fruit within a few years.
Our Take
The sweetest nut in the American chestnut family, on a shrub small enough for a garden. Plant it for wildlife, expect blight, and let it resprout.
Related Reading
Continue exploring with these related plants: