18 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CUPULIFERZ. 
color before falling in the autumn. The fragrant flowers open after the leaves are fully grown, from 
the end of May at the south to the end of June in the middle states. The catkins of staminate 
flowers appear with the unfolding of the leaves, and at first are about half an inch long, pubescent, 
green below, and bright red at the apex; when fully grown they are from four to six inches in length, 
with stout stems covered with hoary tomentum, and crowded or scattered flower-clusters. The 
androgynous aments are coated with silvery white tomentum, and are from three to four inches in 
length. The involucres are one-flowered, and are few and scattered at the base of the ament, or they 
are often spicate, and cover its lower half; they are sessile or short-stalked, coated, hke the lower half 
of their glandular pubescent scales, with pale tomentum, marked with two deep red lateral spots, and 
about as long as their ovate acute light green puberulous bracts; the staminate flowers clustered toward 
the apex of the ament are rather smaller than those on the staminate ament. The fruiting imvolucres, 
when fully grown, are from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, with thin walls coated on the 
inner surface with lustrous pale hairs, and are tomentose on the outer surface, and covered with crowded 
fascicles of slender spines tomentose toward the base, or with scattered clusters of stouter spmes. The 
nuts, which fall late in September and in October, are ovate, cylindrical, rounded at the slightly 
narrowed. base, gradually narrowed and pointed at the apex, which is more or less coated with silvery 
white pubescence, dark chestnut-brown, and very lustrous, from three quarters of an inch to an inch 
long, and one third of an inch broad, with a thin shell lined with a coat of lustrous hoary tomentum, 
and a sweet seed. 
Castanea pumila inhabits dry sandy ridges, rich hillsides, and the borders of swamps, and is 
distributed from southern Pennsylvania’ to northern Florida and the valley of the Neches River in 
Texas. Usually shrubby in all the region east of the Alleghany Mountains, the Chinquapin becomes 
truly arborescent west of the Mississippi River, and grows to its largest size in southern Arkansas and 
eastern Texas, where it is also more abundant than in other parts of the country. 
The wood of Castanea pumila is light, hard, strong, coarse-grained, and very durable in contact 
with the ground. It is dark brown, with thin hardly distinguishable sapwood composed of three or 
four thick layers of annual growth, and contains numerous obscure medullary rays and bands of several 
rows of large open ducts marking the layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely 
dry wood is 0.5887, a cubic foot weighing 36.69 pounds. 
railway ties. 
The sweet nuts are gathered in the forest and sold in the markets of western and southern cities. 
Differmg from the Old World Chestnut in its low stature and solitary cylindrical nuts, the 
Chinquapin was noticed by several of the early European travelers in America. Captain John Smith 
published the first account of it in 1612,’ and it was described by Banister in his Catalogue of 
Virginia Plants, published by Ray in 1688.2 The Chinquapin was one of the first American plants 
It is used for fence-posts and rails, and for 
1 In Pennsylvania Castanea pumila is almost confined to the 
counties of Adams and York, where it is often common, although it 
crosses over the western slope of the South Mountain into Franklin 
and Cumberland, occurring on the Susquehanna a few miles south 
of the city of Harrisburg. (See Baird, Literary Record and Jour- 
nal Linn. Assoc. Penn. College, i. 59 [A Catalogue of the Trees and 
Shrubs of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania].) 
2 “They haue a small fruit growing on little trees, husked like 
This 
a Chestnut, but the fruit most like a very small acorne. 
they call Chechinquamins, which they esteeme a great daintie.’ 
(Smith, A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Country, 11.) 
‘In deliciis habent Chechinquamins, fructus exiguos, glandibus 
haud absimiles, nisi quod calicibus contineantur instar avellana- 
rum.” (Jan de Laet, Nov. Orb. 81.) 
“They have a small fruict growing in little trees, husked like a 
chestnut, but the fruict most like a very small acron, this they call 
chechniquamins, and these, with chestnutts, they boile four or five 
houres, of which they make both broth and bread, for their chief 
(Strachey, Historie of Travaile 
into Virginia Britannia, ed. Major, 118.) 
“The -Chincopin Tree bears a Nut not unlike the Hazle, the 
Shell is softer : Of the Kernel is made Chocolate, not much inferiour 
men, or at their greatest feasts.” 
to that made of the Cacoa.” (Thomas Ashe, Carolina or a Descrip- 
tion of the Present State of that Country, 7.) 
8 Castanea pumila racemoso fructu parvo, in singulis capsulis echi- 
natis unico, The Chinquapin, Ray, Hist. Pl. ii. 1926. — Miller, Dict. 
No. 3. 
Castanea pumilis, Virginiana, racemoso fructu parvo, in singulis 
capsulis echinatis, unico, Plukenet, Alm. Bot. 90. — Catesby, Nat. 
Hist. Car. i. 9, t. 9. 
