Hazel
Corylus avellana
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Lambs' tails in January, and nuts in autumn that half the wood is waiting for.
A multi-stemmed deciduous shrub or small tree of hedgerow and woodland understorey, with soft, round, hairy leaves that come to a short point. The dangling yellow male catkins — lambs' tails — open in the depths of winter, long before the leaves, while the female flowers are minute crimson tufts easily missed on the same twig. Hazel is common right across the Dumfries area.
Behaviour
Hazel coppices exceptionally well: cut to the base it regrows a crop of straight poles, and coppiced stools worked on rotation can live for centuries. This produced the hurdles, thatching spars and hedging stakes of traditional rural economies. The nuts are a critical autumn food — squirrels, wood mice, bank voles, jays and nuthatches all take them, each leaving a differently gnawed shell.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Birches (Betulaceae)
- Height
- Up to 12 m, usually multi-stemmed
- Status
- Native; common, and the classic coppice shrub
Photo by H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons