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Castanea seguinii
Castanea seguinii is a small tree or shrub from south-central and southeast China, rarely above 12 m, grown for its small edible nuts and used as a trap crop for chestnut gall wasp. It is best grown as a hardy, sun-loving tree in open ground.
Castanea seguinii, called Seguin chestnut, Seguin's chestnut, or Chinese chinquapin (a name it shares with Castanea henryi), and in Chinese: 茅栗, mao li, is a species of chestnut native to south‑central and southeast China.
Castanea seguinii grow in mixed mesophytic forests and thickets from 400 to 2000 m in elevation. Their bark is eaten by golden snub‑nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) in winter. In their native habitat they flower in May through July, and fruit from September to November.
Its nuts are small, but are edible and occasionally cultivated or collected in the wild and consumed by locals. Locals also practice coppicing for firewood. Another use in China is as a trap crop for Dryocosmus kuriphilus gall wasps. By planting a hedge of C. seguinii around C. mollissima (Chinese chestnut) orchards, the wasps will first encounter and attack the buds of the less valuable C. seguinii, allowing the galled twigs to be cut off and destroyed.
Japanese chestnut · American chestnut · Henry Chestnut · Chinese Chestnut · Castanea × neglecta · Ozark chinkapin · Chinkapin · Sweet chestnut · Chestnut
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Castanea seguinii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
