AMENTIFER^. 171 



Stipules oblong, obtuse. Cupule in fruit open and irregularly laciniate, 

 about as long as the nut. 



In woods, thickets, and hedges. Common, and generally dis- 

 tributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Shrub. Early Spring. 



A bushy shrub or small tree, 3 to 10 feet high or more, with 

 smooth grey bark ; the branches of the year clothed with down, inter- 

 mixed with gland-tipped bristles. Leaves shortly stalked, distichous, 

 2}j to 4 inches long, slightl}^ unequal at the base, doubly serrate, the 

 secondary veins running straight through the midrib to the margins. 

 Male catkins appearing in autumn, in the axils of the leaves, on the 

 shoots of the year, usually 2 or 3 together in a very short raceme, but 

 not opening until the end of winter or commencement of spring, when 

 they become pendulous and 1| to 2|- inches long: catkin-scales pale 

 yellow, with purplish tips, downy, wedgeshaped, with 2 smaller floral- 

 scales adiiate to their inside : stamens attached to the smaller scales 

 along their line of junction; anthers pale yellow, slightly bearded at 

 the apex. Female flowers from solitary scaly buds resembling the 

 leaf-buds, from which the crimson stigmas are protruded. Leaves 

 rather dull green, paler beneath, finely pubescent, pilose on the petiole 

 and veins beneath. Nuts 2 or 3 together, f to f inch long, greenish 

 until nearly ripe, at last bro^vn, with a large basal scar. 



Hazel. 



Frencli, Coudner noisetier. German, Gemeine Hasel. 



The varieties of the hazel under cultivation are numerous, but are represented by 

 the cobnut and filbert. The name filbert was formerly spelt filhercl and fijlbercle, and 

 is said to have been so called after a King Philibert, or it is more probably a corruption 

 of fall-beard, alluding to the husk ; but the old EngHsh poet Gower assigns to the 



name a more poetical origin : — 



" Phmis 

 Was shape into a nutte tree, 

 That all men it might see ; 

 And after Phillis, Philiberd 

 This tree was classed." 



The name Avellana is said by Pliny, according to Professor Targioni, to be derived 

 from Abellina in Asia, supposed to be the valley of Damascus, its native country. He 

 adds, that it had been bx-ought into Greece from Pontus, hence it was called Nux 

 Ponteia. The nuts were called by Theophrastus, Heracleotic nuts, from Heraclea, now 

 Ponderachi, on the Asiatic shores of the Black Sea. Others admit that a variety of 

 hazel-nut or filbert was brought from Pontus to Abella, a town in Campania, and 

 hence the name Avellana was applied to these trfees. In France, at the present 

 day, the best varieties are called Avelines. But the above indications of an Eastern 

 origin can only refer to particular kinds, for the species, it is Avell known, is common 

 enough in Italy, as well as other pai'ts of Europe. It is also found over a great part 

 of Asia in a wild indigenous state. It bears the common names of hazel, hazle, or 



z 2 



