Dwarf chinkapin oak is a shrubby, clone-forming oak that usually stays a shrub or small tree 4 to 6 m tall, spreading by underground rhizomes. It is grown for its leafy, dense habit and is best suited to dry, sandy or acidic soils in full sun.
Family
Fagaceae (Beech & oak family)
Grows as
Tree, Shrub
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water young plants regularly until established, then rely mostly on rain; avoid waterlogging.
Soil
Well-drained, dry, sandy or acidic soil; tolerates poor, shallow soils.
Temperature
Hardy to about -30 °C; tolerates hot summers.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Native range
S. Ontario to C. & E. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate
About
Quercus prinoides, commonly known as dwarf chinkapin oak, dwarf chinquapin oak, dwarf chestnut oak or scrub chestnut oak, is a shrubby, clone-forming oak native to central-eastern North America.
Where it grows
The species range extends from eastern Nebraska, south to Oklahoma (with an isolated population in Louisiana), east to northern Alabama and Georgia, northeast to New Hampshire, and in southeast Canada, extending as far north as the Carolinian forest zone of southern Ontario. It has a virtually disjunct (discontinuous) distribution, fairly common in New England and in the Appalachian Mountains, and also in the eastern Great Plains but rare in the Ohio Valley in between.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Quercus prinoides 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.