Before fungal blight and fire-suppression, this southeastern shrub or small tree may have been much more frequent, at least in Appalachian regions. Solid dots indicate verified native plants. Unverified historical records are mapped here as open dots, but those of Gm and others are hard to interpret. Some colls. may have come from planted or escaped individuals; these include some mapped by Johnson (1988) and CW. Previous records from JEFF (pumila likely planted) and OLDH (msidentified mollissima) are not accepted here. There appear to be no verified records of native plants from Ind. (D) or Ohio, despite recent mapping in those states by FNA 3 and others. C. pumila (excluding ozarkensis which tends to have taller stems and larger leaves) differs from dentata as follows (Sm, FNA 3, W; Perkins et al., in press): shrubs or small trees up to 10 m (versus large tree up to 30 m, without lateral spread), leaf blades averaging smaller at 4-20 x 3-8 cm (versus 9-30 x 3-10 cm); leaf margin ciliate (versus not so); lower leaf surface with dense to sparse stellate hairs (versus glabrous except for scattered simple hairs on veins) and glandless (versus with minute multicellular glands often embedded); cupules 2-valved, enclosing 1 flower/fruit (versus 4-valved, enclosing 3 flowers/fruits); nuts mostly 1-2 cm long (versus 2-2.5 cm), round in cross section, ovoid-conic (versus obovate, flattened at least on one side), the beak less than 3 mm excluding styles (versus beak thin, flexible, to 8 mm or more excluding styles). There may be rare hybrids with dentata, as indicated by a coll. from nearby Fentress Co. in Tenn. and elsewhere, especially N.Car. to Penn. (Johnson 1988). However, genomic evidence indicates that at least some supposed hybrids represent a distinct cryptic species, C. alabamensis Ashe (Sm, Shaw et al. 2012; Perkins et al., in press). That species appears to differ from pumila as follows: lower leaf surfaces somewhat glaucous (versus not so), largely glabrous (versus densely pubescent); fresh twigs largely glabrous (versus usually pubescent); stems generally up to 10 m tall with somewhat furrowed bark (versus more shrubby, less than 10 m tall). It is known from Ala. and Ga., and may occur in Tenn. (M. Brock, pers comm.).