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Portrait of Hazel

Nature · Shrubs

Hazel

Native · catkins from mid-February · woods, scrub and hedgerows

Corylus avellana — Betulaceae

The multi-stemmed shrub of coppice, understorey and hedge, whose yellow catkins ('lambs' tails') open in mid-February, long before the leaves. Its nuts feed dormice and squirrels, its bendy stems have been coppiced for some 4,000 years, and it is one of the woody species counted when dating a hedge by Hooper's rule.

How to spot them

  • ▸Yellow male catkins hanging in clusters in late winter, before the leaves; the female flowers are tiny red bud-like tufts
  • ▸Round-to-oval, doubly toothed leaves that are soft and downy to the touch, with a pointed tip
  • ▸Many straight, bendy, hairy stems springing from one stool, with smooth grey-brown bark that peels with age
  • ▸Nuts held in a short, leafy, frilly husk that covers about three quarters of the nut
  • ▸Look-alike: English elm has similar leaves, but they are rough rather than soft and have a lopsided (asymmetric) base

How to know it

Yellow catkins like lambs' tails dangle from bare twigs from mid-February, well before the leaves appear

Hazel.

Round, doubly toothed, soft downy leaves on a many-stemmed shrub that is cut to the ground and regrows for centuries

Hazel. Coppiced stools may live for several hundred years.

In Irish legend, its nuts fell into a pool and gave wisdom to the salmon that ate them

Hazel — the 'Tree of Knowledge' in Ireland.

The dormouse that shares its name with this shrub fattens on its nuts to prepare for hibernation

Hazel (the hazel dormouse).

Cultivated varieties of this shrub, called cobs, are still grown as a crop in Kent

Hazel — Kentish cobnuts.

A forked rod cut from this shrub was traditionally used for water-divining and as a wand

Hazel.

In a 30-yard stretch of hedgerow, each woody species counted adds roughly a century to the age given by Hooper's rule; this many-stemmed catkin-bearer is one of the shrubs typically counted

Hazel, alongside hawthorn, field maple, dogwood, spindle and others.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Corylus avellana — avellana refers to Avella in Campania, Italy; family Betulaceae, with birch, alder and hornbeam
  • •Monoecious but needs pollen from another hazel, carried by the wind
  • •Catkins open from mid-February (Woodland Trust), giving early pollen to bees, though the pollen is not sticky and is hard for them to gather
  • •Coppiced for about 4,000 years (Wildlife Trusts): cut to the base every few years for hurdles, wattle, thatching spars and bean poles
  • •Coppicing opens the woodland floor to wildflowers and fritillary butterflies and shelters nightingale, nightjar and yellowhammer
  • •Hooper's rule (Max Hooper, 1970s): count the woody species in a 30-yard (roughly 30 m) length of hedge; each represents about a century, so five species suggests around 500 years, with an error of up to about 200 years either way
  • •Hooper's rule is unreliable where a hedge was planted with mixed species or has been heavily managed
  • •EDIBLE: hazelnuts, which ripen in late summer and early autumn, are the familiar edible fruit; most British hazelnuts today are imported
  • •Hazel is the shrub most associated with the hazel dormouse, which eats the nuts and also spring caterpillars found on the leaves
  • •Coppice management is not recommended for the ancient Atlantic hazel woods of western Scotland, whose bryophytes and lichens are disturbance-sensitive

Drill it — 7 cards

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