Dwarf Chinkapin Oak -- Quercus prinoides
In my backyard landscaping. This plant is native to Indiana, but only known from Elkhart County, which borders Michigan. It may not even be extant in Indiana any longer. This oak has an odd distribution. Its native habitats are usually dry, and the area in Indiana where it was known is very sandy. In looking at its distribution in the USDA Plants Database, it seems to be exceedingly scattered in the upper Midwest, but is shown in many more counties to the west in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma and in the east in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
My yard has a high tension power line which crosses it, and the electric utility is pretty fussy about woody plants growing up toward the lines. I had two white pines that they've wanted to remove for years, and I finally let them remove the trees. Where the pines had been, I put in a small mound and planted five dwarf chinkapin oaks that I bought from a nursery in Illinois. I've also planted prairie dropseed (a grass) and New Jersey tea (a small shrub) on the mound. The oaks can be kept short through pruning, but even without pruning they shouldn't get over 8 or 10 feet tall. Right now they are just over two feet tall and have acorns!! Pretty cool, but the squirrels have found the acorns and they've pretty much eaten them all already!
Dwarf Chinkapin Oak -- Quercus prinoides
In my backyard landscaping. This plant is native to Indiana, but only known from Elkhart County, which borders Michigan. It may not even be extant in Indiana any longer. This oak has an odd distribution. Its native habitats are usually dry, and the area in Indiana where it was known is very sandy. In looking at its distribution in the USDA Plants Database, it seems to be exceedingly scattered in the upper Midwest, but is shown in many more counties to the west in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma and in the east in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
My yard has a high tension power line which crosses it, and the electric utility is pretty fussy about woody plants growing up toward the lines. I had two white pines that they've wanted to remove for years, and I finally let them remove the trees. Where the pines had been, I put in a small mound and planted five dwarf chinkapin oaks that I bought from a nursery in Illinois. I've also planted prairie dropseed (a grass) and New Jersey tea (a small shrub) on the mound. The oaks can be kept short through pruning, but even without pruning they shouldn't get over 8 or 10 feet tall. Right now they are just over two feet tall and have acorns!! Pretty cool, but the squirrels have found the acorns and they've pretty much eaten them all already!