To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] RE: chestnuts/oaks
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 12:05:17 -0500
At 03:39 PM 6/17/2004 +0000, you wrote:
Silly question, compared to recent posts on topic:
I've heard of a chinquapin oak, but not chestnut. Was I mis-informed, or
are there 2 things? Does the oak have a nut or timber use?
Tanis,
Chinkapin oak is Q.muehlenbergii, a member of the white oak group. Small
acorns with relatively high oil content, for the white oaks. Timber use
would be similar to that of white oak.
Chinkapin/chinquapin is (mostly) Castanea pumila, though there are some
folks who break out some different species, such as C.ozarkensis - whether
or not they're actually separate species, I don't know.
The chinkapin is a shrubby to small tree type chestnut that produces a
small bur with a single small nut per bur, whereas the chestnuts typically
produce multiple nuts per bur. A fellow KNGA member was opining, this
spring, that while most of the preservation and recovery efforts have been
focused on the American chestnut, that somebody ought to be looking at
preserving the chinkapin, as it is/was very important as a wildlife food
source.
I've grafted a couple of chinkapin selections this year, one of which
presumably has a Chinese chestnut as one grandparent since it has a large
nut, and have a couple of native trees here on the farm that I'm still
trying to get a positive ID on - I don't know if they're American chestnuts
or chinkapins.