Common hazel

Appearance

Common hazel is typically a shrub reaching 3–8 m tall, but can reach 15 m. The leaves are deciduous, rounded, 6–12 cm long and across, softly hairy on both surfaces, and with a double-serrate margin. The flowers are produced very early in spring, before the leaves, and are monoecious with single-sex wind-pollinated catkins. Male catkins are pale yellow and 5–12 cm long, while female catkins are very small and largely concealed in the buds with only the bright red 1–3 mm long styles visible. The fruit is a nut, produced in clusters of one to five together, each nut held in a short leafy involucre which encloses about three quarters of the nut. The nut is roughly spherical to oval, 15–20 mm long and 12–20 mm broad , yellow-brown with a pale scar at the base. The nut falls out of the involucre when ripe, about 7–8 months after pollination.

It is readily distinguished from the closely related filbert by the short involucre; in the filbert the nut is fully enclosed by a beak-like involucre longer than the nut.

The leaves provide food for many animals, including Lepidoptera such as the case-bearer moth, ''Coleophora anatipennella''. Caterpillars of the concealer moth, ''Alabonia geoffrella,'' have been found feeding inside dead common hazel twigs. See also ''List of Lepidoptera that feed on hazels.''

The fruit are possibly even more important animal food, both for invertebrates adapted to circumvent the shell and for vertebrates which manage to crack them open .

The scientific name ''avellana'' derives from the town of Avella in Italy, and was selected by Linnaeus from Leonhart Fuchs's ''De historia stirpium commentarii insignes'' , where the species was described as "''Avellana nux sylvestris''" .

Habitat

Common hazel is typically a shrub reaching 3–8 m tall, but can reach 15 m. The leaves are deciduous, rounded, 6–12 cm long and across, softly hairy on both surfaces, and with a double-serrate margin. The flowers are produced very early in spring, before the leaves, and are monoecious with single-sex wind-pollinated catkins. Male catkins are pale yellow and 5–12 cm long, while female catkins are very small and largely concealed in the buds with only the bright red 1–3 mm long styles visible. The fruit is a nut, produced in clusters of one to five together, each nut held in a short leafy involucre which encloses about three quarters of the nut. The nut is roughly spherical to oval, 15–20 mm long and 12–20 mm broad , yellow-brown with a pale scar at the base. The nut falls out of the involucre when ripe, about 7–8 months after pollination.

It is readily distinguished from the closely related filbert by the short involucre; in the filbert the nut is fully enclosed by a beak-like involucre longer than the nut.

The leaves provide food for many animals, including Lepidoptera such as the case-bearer moth, ''Coleophora anatipennella''. Caterpillars of the concealer moth, ''Alabonia geoffrella,'' have been found feeding inside dead common hazel twigs. See also ''List of Lepidoptera that feed on hazels.''

The fruit are possibly even more important animal food, both for invertebrates adapted to circumvent the shell and for vertebrates which manage to crack them open .

The scientific name ''avellana'' derives from the town of Avella in Italy, and was selected by Linnaeus from Leonhart Fuchs's ''De historia stirpium commentarii insignes'' , where the species was described as "''Avellana nux sylvestris''" .

Uses

The Common Hazel is a shrub common in many European woodlands. It is an important component of the hedgerows that were the traditional field boundaries in lowland England. The wood was traditionally grown as coppice, the poles cut being used for wattle-and-daub building and agricultural fencing. A selection with twisted branches has been propagated horticulturally as ''Corylus avellana'' 'Contorta'.