CHINQUAPIN (Castanea pumila, Mill.). Shrub to 50 Shrub to medium-sized tree, with round top of spreading, slender branches and pubescent twigs. Bark reddish brown, broken into thin, scaly plates. Wood coarse-grained, brown, hard, strong, durable, used for posts, rails, and ties. Leaves oblong-oval, acute, with stiff, sharp teeth on margin, fuzzy on opening, with thick, white wool lining, becoming thick, yellow-green, smooth above and silvery-pubescent beneath, 3 to 5 inches long; short petioles. Flowers monoecious, silvery
pubescent, in axillary spikes; staminate, 4 to 6 inches long, red-tipped, fragrant; pistillate on base of spike, few, bottle shaped. Fruit a spiny, 2-valved busk containing an ovoid, sweet nut. Dist.: Bare, gravelly ridges, or swamp margins, forming thickets, Pennsylvania to Florida; west to Arkansas and Texas.