3b. var. pumila (chinquapin, Allegheny chinquapin)

Bark gray to brown, smooth or slightly fissured. Twigs sometimes short-hairy, more often merely with sessile glands, sometimes also with longer, spreading hairs . Petioles 2–10 mm long. Leaf blade 7.5–16.0 cm long, 3–6 cm wide, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, broadly to sharply angled or somewhat short-tapered at the tip, the marginal teeth 1–4 mm long, straight or nearly so, the secondary veins 11–18 on each side of the midvein, the midvein with inconspicuous, sessile glands and scattered, long, spreading hairs, sometimes also short-hairy, the undersurface also densely hairy between the veins. Cupules 2–7 per spike, 1.0–1.2 cm wide at fruiting (excluding the spines); spines 5–10 mm long. 2n=24. May–June.

Uncommon, known thus far only from a single historical collection from Howell County (eastern U.S. west to Missouri and Texas). Mesic upland forests in ravines.

As noted above, the varietal description here applies only to populations in the Ozarks, where this variety seems to be very constant in its morphology and quite distinct from var. ozarkensis. Elsewhere in its range, var. pumila forms a bewildering array of local races. Some of them are very dissimilar in their extreme forms, but they intergrade with one another very extensively.