Saving an American Treasure
Every year we mail seed with improved blight resistance to OCF Members
UPDATE: We’ve finished mailing seed for members who joined before January 1, 2023. Anyone who made a donation or buys an annual seed membership after 1/1/2023 will be placed at the top of the list to receive seed at the end of this year (winter 2023).
Chinquapin Wood Trench Bowls
By OCF Vice President A.J. Hendershott
Trench bowls, also called trenchers, are a traditional craft that can be traced to historic folk craft of the late 1500s on through the early 1900s. Native Americans made similar wooden bowls with stone axes and adzes and burned away the depression with coals and scrapers..
Chinquapin Longbow
OCF Vice President A. J. Hendershott has been hand making wood bows since 1997. In this article, he describes in detail how he turned the wood of a drought killed Ozark chinquapin into a beautiful longbow.
Tips and tricks to protect your Ozark chinquapin nut crop from animal predation
Schoolhouse Memories of the Ozark Chinquapin & Hully Gully
In this article, read interviews from people who remember Ozark chinquapin and the childhood game “Hully Gully”
Chinquapin "worms": Preserving Ozark Chinquapin nuts
Learn how to identify chestnut weevils, know if your seed are infested, how to kill them, tips, tricks and more
Medicinal Uses of Ozark Chinquapin
For over 15 years we’ve been working to recover the imperiled Ozark chinquapin, but in times past, the tree was used to help people recover from ailments of their own…
Chinquapin Barrels and The Cooper
The Ozark chinquapin was historically utilized in a variety of ways for its wood..
About Ozark Chinquapin
Background and history
The Ozark chinquapin (Castanea ozarkensis) is a drought tolerant hardwood tree that inhabits rocky upper slopes and ridges..
annual Membership
Join or renew Annual Seed Membershp
If you want to help us you can get involved by becoming a member. Every year we ship members seed taken from trees on our tests plots showing levels of blight resistance.
Chinquapin Library –Updated!
Newspaper articles from 1887-1970 talking about the trees
An interesting glimpse into the cultural and economic significance of the Ozark chinquapin tree
Our Mission and Vision
The Ozark Chinquapin Foundation (OCF) is a non-profit organization of outdoors-men and women with a vision of restoring the Ozark Chinquapin to its historic native range. Through our efforts, and those of hundreds of volunteers over the last decade, we are attempting to establish a viable seed base through research and the manual cross-pollination of surviving trees. Our goal is to develop a 100 % pure Ozark Chinquapin that is blight resistant, and distribute the seeds to everyone interested in helping.
Join The Ozark Chinquapin Foundation
If you are interested in joining our efforts and obtaining seed, we welcome your help and support! Membership in the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation is $30.00 per year. If you would like to give a donation with your annual membership you can do that typing in a custom amount or choosing one of the options on the form.
Seed from the Ozark Chinquapin are still very rare and seed with resistance even rarer. However, every year we are able to ship seed with better resistance than the year before. Every year we mail our annual members seed collected from our research test plots. There is no guarantee these seed are blight resistant. However, the parent trees these seed were collected from are large (11″ – 21″ Dia.) 100% pure Ozark Chinquapin trees that exhibit varying levels of resistance.
Members will have their seed shipped in January-March 2023 in order of membership received. With your membership you get 3-5 rare seed depending on availability, growing instructions, updates on restoration progress and the first opportunity at resistant seed as they become available from research test plots.
Thank You for your help and support!
New Updates!