The native chinquapin chestnut or Allegheny chestnut (Castanea pumila) grows as a 2 – 4 m tall shrub or a 6 – 11 m tall tree. It is found in rich soils in the eastern and central United States, from New Jersey southward to northern Florida, and sparingly, westward from Indiana to east Texas. It is listed as a threatened native species in Kentucky and endangered in New Jersey. The plants, which begin producing nuts at 3 – 4 years of age, flower from May to June with fruits ripening in September within a spiny husk called a burr from 1.5 to 4.5 cm in diameter. The flowers have a strong, unpleasant odor. The chinquapins are difficult to harvest as they do not fall easily from trees, and as they open they are often eaten by birds or climbing mammals. Chinquapins are smaller than chestnuts, but ripen earlier. The nuts is excellent for fresh eating or roasted. An important food of the various Native peoples of the eastern United States, chinquapin’s uses were recognized in early European explorer and settler works dating back to the 1500s. Local markets for dried foraged nuts expanded in the 19th century, and in rural areas the roots were dried and made into a tea consumed to reduce fever. The wood of the chinquapin tree was also used as lumber. However, these uses never became popular enough to warrant the selection and improvement or widespread cultivation of chinquapin trees. In the 20th century, people came to realize the importance of chinquapins as a wild food source in areas that had been ravaged by chestnut blight (to which the chinquapin is more resistant than the American chestnut). Animals eat the ripened nuts, and the flavor of game (like wild birds, deer, rabbit and hogs) fed on chinquapins is markedly superior to that of general forage animals. In part to aid in the reforestation of southern wildlife ecosystems, chinquapin seedlings came to be carried by nurseries in the latter decades of the 20th century, raising the prospect of larger wild populations of animals fed on the nuts. Today, while it is rare to find the nuts available for purchase, the trees are often sold to supply reforestation efforts. One of the requisites of the effort to create a sustainable population of chinquapins in its historical range will be the improvement of the trees so that they resist root rot. Additionally, if selection and breeding efforts succeeded in making the burr that protects the small nut less difficult to handle and separate, the nuts could be used to create transformed food products like flours. There is also potential for the development of specialty meat products, such as pork or deer fed with chinquapins.
