see it clearly

Hazel Tree

Belonging to that group of trees characterized by their catkins of simple and inconspicuous flowers, and by their nut-like fruits, more or less enclosed in bracts forming a sheath or "cupule," often of cup-like shape, the Hazel seldom has the habit or dimensions of a tree. It is generally a shrub, sending up many slender limbs remarkable for their brown bark and their great flexibility. 

The young twigs are hairy and glandular and of a rusty-brown hue. The flowers appear in January, or exceptionally even as early as October, but are most frequently not open until March, whilst the leaves do not open until the end of April or beginning of May. The male and female blossoms occur on the same tree, but in distinct clusters or "catkins."

The male catkins are pendulous, first appearing as minute sausage-shaped buds of a dull brownish hue, but lengthening to two inches or more, and becoming, when the anthers are fully matured, of a pale greenish-yellow or primrose color, which is more decidedly green when the pollen has been shed. Each catkin consists of a number of bract-like scales, each bearing eight anthers on its inner surface, so that a cloud of fine-grained yellow pollen is shaken from them by the March gales, after discharging which they drop off.

The female flowers are grouped in little egg-shaped, bud-like tufts, sessile on the branch, consisting of several overlapping green bracts, each of which bears two flowers on its inner face, the crimson stigmas forming a tassel at the top of the cluster. The flower itself is only a two-chambered ovary, surrounded by a velvety cup-like "bracteole" (which afterwards grows into the large leafy husk or "cupule" of the nut), and is surmounted by a short style and two of the long, crimson, tongue-like stigmas.

Concerning the nut, the Rev. H.N. Ellacombe writes:--

"There is a peculiarity in the growth of the nut that is worth the notice of the botanical student. The male blossoms or catkins (also anciently called agglettes or blowinges') are mostly produced at the ends of the year's shoots, while the pretty little crimson female blossoms are produced close to the branch; they are completely sessile or unstalked. Now, in most fruit trees, when a flower is fertilised the fruit is produced exactly in the same place, with respect to the main tree, that the flower occupied; a peach or apricot, for instance, rests upon the branch which bore the flower. But in the nut a different arrangement prevails. As soon as the flower is fertilised it starts away from the parent branch; a fresh branch is produced, bearing leaves and the nut or nuts at the end, so that the nut is produced several inches away from the spot on which the flower originally was. I know of no other tree that produces its fruit in this way, nor do I know what special benefit to the plant arises from this arrangement."

Towards the solution of this problem it may be suggested that as it produces no petals the shrub has energy to form abundant pollen, some of which will certainly be wind-wafted on to the spreading stigmas if there are no leaves in the way. Hence the advantage to wind-fertilized flowers of blossoming before the leaves appear. As the two kinds of flowers in the Hazel often do not come to maturity simultaneously, the advantages of cross-fertilization are thus secured. Again, l'union fait la force, and a cluster or short spike of flowers (each of which is structurally a short branch), surrounded by bracts and sessile on a bough, will stand a better chance of keeping its place, in spite of spring storms, than a single flower. Moreover, the tufted stigmas secure the fertilization of some of their number. Fertilization acts as a stimulus. The male catkins have performed their function and have dropped off, so nourishment flows towards the female one. In order, however, that the fruit may not ripen too soon and so fall to the ground and rot before the winter's frosts, it must not develop thus early in spring. The food is, therefore, thus employed in producing a branch below the nascent bunch of nuts.

The leaves of the Hazel are large, heart-shaped and rounded, with toothed edges, a long point, a downy under-surface, and a short stalk. In the bud they are folded into several longitudinal plaits, and when young are bright and pleasing in hue; but later on they take yellow-brown tints of green and a dull woolliness, that render the tree heavy as a feature in the landscape, except when relieved by the brown stem, the pale green clusters of unripe nuts, or their own autumnal changes into yellow, dull orange, or red.

The Hazel is found in Northern Africa, in Central and Northern Asia, and throughout Europe south of 63 degree N. latitude, having very much the same range as the Beech. It reaches an altitude of about 3,800 feet in the Alps, and 1,600 feet in the north of Britain.

As the Linden is interesting to us from its association with the name of Linnaeus, so the specific name of the Hazel (derived originally from Abella or Avellino, a city in the Neapolitan Campania, where the tree was much cultivated) becomes additionally interesting from its connection with that of the great tree-lover, John Evelyn. He tells us himself that in some ancient records and deeds in his possession his ancestors' names were generally written, "Avelan, alias Evelin." Evelyn's account of the soil suited to Hazels is that they, "above all, affect cold, barren, dry and sandy grounds; mountainous, and even rocky, soils produce them; they prosper where quarries of freestone lie underneath, as at Hazelbury in Wiltshire, Hazelingfield in Cambridgeshire, Hazelmere in Surrey, and other places; but more plentifully if the ground be some-what moist, dankish and mossy, as in the fresher bottoms and sides of hills, holts, and in hedgerows." In Kent, where the Hazel is abundant both in a wild and in a cultivated state, it thrives best on a light calcareous loam, resting on the ragstone or the chalk; but in Scotland it often grows on a granite subsoil. It seems, in fact, to require at once abundant moisture and good drainage.

The name Corylus is of doubtful etymology, being variously derived either from the Greek kopus (korus), a cap, from the husk of the nut; or from kapuov (karyon), a nut. "Hazel" is said to come from the early English "haes," a behest, connected with the German "heissen," to give orders, the sceptre of authority among the simple chieftains of a more primitive time having been a Hazelwand.

The wild Hazel has grown abundantly since pre-historic times, and its nuts appear to have formed part of the food of the Swiss lake-dwellers. Both the Hazel and the Filbert were cultivated by the Romans, who are said to have given Scotland the Latinised name of Caledonia, from Cal-Dun, the Hill of Hazel, whilst the Filbert was called by them Nux Pontica, having been brought originally from Pontus. Its modern name is almost certainly a barbarous compound of "feuille," a leaf, and "beard," referring to the long cupule projecting beyond the nut; but in very early times a more poetical origin was found for the name. Phyllis, despairing at the prolonged absence of Demophoon, put an end to her life, but, as Gower tells us in his "Confessio Amantis"--

"Phyllis in the same throwe
Was shape into a nutte-tree,
That alle men it might see;
And after Phyllis, Philliberde
This tre was cleped in the yerde."

Many of the old vocabularies allude to the same fanciful etymology, and Spenser speaks of "Phillis' philbert."

Virgil states that Hazel-twigs were used to bind the vines; but that, the roots of the nut-tree being considered injurious to the vines from their spreading character, spits of Hazel were also used in the sacrifice to Bacchus of the goat that browsed on the plants sacred to him. In mediaeval times considerable respect seems to have been paid to the Hazel, and many cases have been recorded, both in England and on the Continent, of the occurrence of Hazel-wands in the coffins of ecclesiastics, possibly in commemoration of a pilgrimage performed by the deceased. But its chief importance was for ages derived from its supposed magical powers of divination. The use of the divining-rod would seem, from Hosea iv. 12, to be of extreme antiquity, and the "virgula Mercurialis," as it was termed in Roman times, though sometimes, as now, made of willow or other wood, or even of metal, was frequently of Hazel. Its virtue was supposed to depend upon its having two forks, which were so grasped in the fists, with the fingers uppermost, that the free end might turn downward toward the object sought. In other cases the rod was peeled and simply laid on the palm of the hand. 

In the fifteenth century this art of divination was named rhabdomancy. "It is," says Evelyn, "very wonderful, by whatever occult virtue, the forked stick (so cut, and skilfully held) becomes impregnated with those invisible steams and exhalations, as by its spontaneous bending from a horizontal posture to discover not only mines and subterranean treasure and springs of water, but criminals guilty of murder, &c. . . . Certainly next to a miracle, and requires a strong faith." Even Linnaeus confessed himself to be half a convert to this belief, and the practice of "dowsing," as it is there called, is still common in Cornwall and other western counties. According to the local superstition, the rod is guided to the metalliferous lodes by guardian pyxies, the "kobbolds" of the German miner. It was no doubt this popular term "dowsing" which suggested to Scott the name of Dousterswivel, the charlatan in "The Antiquary," who uses a forked Hazel-rod in his magical performances. The rhabdomist is stated to feel a sudden acceleration or retardation of the pulse, or a sensation of great heat or cold, at the moment of discovery.

It was possibly from this use of Hazel-wands that fortune-telling powers accrued to the fruit of the tree. In many places an ancient custom prevailed, which it was thought unlucky to omit, of going a-nutting on Holy Rood Day, September 14th; whilst the practice of burning nuts on All-Hallows' Eve, October 31st, alluded to by Burns in his "Hallowe'en," and by Gay, was so general that the vigil was called Nuterack Night. The Vicar of Wakefield and his neighbors, it will be remembered, "religiously cracked nuts on All-Hallows' Eve."

The wood of the Hazel is a whitish red, and close and even in grain, and has been used in turnery, whilst well-veined veneers are obtained from the larger roots. The tree is mainly grown, however, as coppice, its shoots being useful for hampers, for "corf" rods (i.e., for baskets used in Durham coal-pits, known as "corves"), for hoops, wattles, walking-sticks, fishing-rods, whip-handles, &c. Rustic seats and baskets for gardens made of Hazel-rods, varnished with the bark on, are found to be very durable. This coppice also makes good oven-wood, and its charcoal is suited for crayons or for gunpowder.

It is for its fruit, however, that the tree is most valued, for the sake of which it is largely cultivated in "the garden of England" round Maidstone. The rows of heavy, dull-leaved, close-growing shrubs in the Kentish nut-gardens cannot be considered ornamental--in summer at least. But in the autumn woods, when

"The scrambling shepherd with his hook,
'Mong Hazel-boughs of rusty brown,
That overhang some gulping brook,
Drags the ripened clusters down,"

the Hazel gains the charm of association with the careless joys of our boyhood.

"The scrambling shepherd" will, however, often find, in lieu of the nut he seeks, that chariot of Queen Mab--

"An empty Hazel-nut
Made by the joiner-squirrel or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers."

The grub in question, one out of nearly a hundred insects that attack the Hazel, is the Weevil (Balaninus nucum), a tawny-brown beetle that may be seen creeping along the boughs or flying round the nut-bushes in the early summer.