Quercus prinoides
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.
Description
The dwarf chinkapin oak is a shrub or small tree that typically grows up to 13–20 feet tall and 13–20 ft wide. It sometimes spreads vegetatively by means of underground rhizomes. The leaves of dwarf chinkapin oak closely resemble those of chinkapin oak, but are smaller: 5–15 centimeters long, compared to 10–18 cm long for chinkapin oak. The acorns are long, with the cup enclosing about half of the acorn.While similar in foliage and fruits, but with smaller leaves, the dwarf chinkapin oak may also be distinguished from the chinkapin oak by differences in growth habit and habitat.
Taxonomy
Quercus prinoides was named and described by the German botanist Karl (Carl) Ludwig Willdenow in 1801, in a German journal article by the German-American Pennsylvania botanist Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg. The epithet prinoides refers to its resemblance to Quercus prinus, the chestnut oak.However, this shrubby oak, now generally accepted as a distinct species, is more closely related to chinkapin oak than to chestnut oak. These two kinds of oak have sometimes been considered to be conspecific, in which case the earlier-published name Q. prinoides has priority, with the larger chinkapin oak then usually classified as Quercus prinoides var. acuminata and the shrubby form as Q. prinoides var. prinoides.