II. A. THE HAZEL, 171 



The American Hazel. C. Americana. Wangenheim. 



The hazel is a small, branched shrub, from three to six feet 

 high. The younger branches are gray and hairy, with green, or 

 red, gland-bearing hairs, and afterwards become brown, lighter 

 below, with orange, or green dots; the stem is dark colored. 

 The leaves are broad ovate, or elliptic, heart-shaped at base, 

 acuminate, coarsely and irregularly somewhat doubly serrate., 

 hairy and rough, at last nearly smooth above, pale and hairy, 

 with fine hairs, on the veins, veinlets, and axils beneath. The 

 leaf-stalk is short, round, and covered with glandular hairs, 

 which are scattered on the mid-rib, and sometimes on the larger 

 veins beneath. Stipules broad at base, tapering to a point, 

 sometimes toothed and cut, nearly as long as the footstalk. 



The aments of the next }rear appear in the axils of the leaves 

 in August. In March or April, those on which the sterile 

 flowers are arranged, are found expanded into slender, cylin- 

 drical, tremulous catkins, two or three inches long, terminal, or 

 dependent from lateral footstalks, single, or two to five together. 

 They consist of deltoid, wedge-shaped, concave, pointed, hairy 

 scales, pretty closely and imbricately arranged around a central 

 thread, and each containing about eight anthers, attached by a 

 short, minute thread, to a delicate, hairy membrane, with which 

 it is lined, and which terminates in two scales, just below the 

 edge of the outer one. These aments are of a grayish yellow, 

 or fawn-color, and hang gracefully on their stalks, moving with 

 every wind, and spreading in the air their yellow pollen. 



The fertile flowers are little star-like tufts of crimson stig- 

 mas, projecting above a short, scaly bud of numerous scales ; 

 the outer scales are broader, and edged with hair, the inner 

 ones hairy, lanceolate, and fleshy. In the axil of the central 

 scales are the stigmas, which are long and thread-like, and 

 divided to their base. The inner scales increase in size with 

 the nut, and become the husk, two or three scales, very much 

 enlarged, enclosing it entirely, and forming a cap. 



The nut is about three-fourths of an inch in breadth, and 

 somewhat less in length, roundish, slightly compressed, with a 



