British Native Trees
and Shrubs

Hazel Corylus avellana (Betulaceae)

Upon you tuft of hazel trees,
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstacies,
Yet seeming still to hover,
There! Where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings
That cover him all over…

(Green Linnet vol. 1 p 244)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The shrubby hazel with its mass of grey-brown twigs and soft green leaves was once a vital part of the rural economy, grown for an astonishingly wide range of uses from house building, fences and sheep hurdles to basketwork, artists’ charcoal and dowsing rods. It is also the only native tree to produce edible fruit. Hazel usually forms a multi-stemmed deciduous shrub up to 5 m in height, although as a tree it can reach up to 10 m. The shiny, often mottled, brown bark has light-coloured horizontal pores and can be almost silver-grey on stouter stems, while the alternate, hairy leaves are broad and roundish with doubly-toothed margins and a short, pointed tip. At any time from January onwards, the small, grey-green cylinders of clustered male flowers open into the familiar yellow, pollen-filled, ‘lambs’ tails’ catkins. The female flowers ripen a little later and are far less conspicuous, looking like brown buds with a little crown of bright red stamens. The smooth, rounded, hard-shelled hazel nuts are usually in groups of one to four, held in leafy, ragged-edged cups of pale green bracts, ripening from green to brown in the autumn and enclosing a sweet-tasting, white kernel.

Hazel is found in hedgerows, woodland and scrub throughout England on a wide range of soils, although not the more acid, up to 500 m in Yorkshire.

It is an attractive and amenable plant for the garden, grown in a shrub border, in a mixed hedge or flanking a path to create a nut walk. The golden catkins are cheering in winter and the leaves turn pale yellow in autumn, often lasting on the tree until November. Hazel associates well with spring flowers such as primroses and bluebells. Coppicing every seven years or so will produce straight stems and hedging hazel can be cut to shape, but for a harvest of hazel nuts it must be left unpruned or lightly pruned in winter and again in spring when the flowers are visible. It grows in sun or shade, in moist or dry soil and is useful on chalky soils. Hazel twigs can be extremely useful in the garden, making a natural-looking climbing aid for peas and beans and for climbers or slender-stemmed plants in the border.

Hazel is host to over 70 insect species, its clouds of pollen in early spring providing a feast for foraging bees, The nuts attract the attentions of the long-snouted nut weevil and they are collected by squirrels and field mice long before they are fully ripe, so owners must be alert and pick early.

Page last updated - January 10, 2002  

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