254 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



Corylus Colurna^ a plant very different, since in the 

 Levant it often grows sixty feet high. The leaves are 

 softer and more angular ; the catkins are longer and very 

 handsome; the involucres are deeply laciniated and 

 fringed, and the points are recurved. Fine old speci- 

 mens of the Colurna, the source of the " Smyrna nuts " 

 of commerce, may be seen at Kew, at Syon, and in the 

 Oxford Botanic Garden. Another species, the Algerian 

 hazel, Corylus Algertensis, from the Atlas mountains, 

 produces a singularly large, full, and well-flavoured nut, 

 and well deserves to be made an object of culture. 



The best of the imported hazel-nuts are the " Black 

 Spanish." The "Barcelonas" have been submitted to 

 the operation of kiln-drying, and are thus much spoiled 

 in flavour, though allowing of being kept longer. The 

 latter come chiefly from Catalonia, a province of eastern 

 Spain. So prolific are the trees in that country, that a 

 nut-wood has been known to afford sixty thousand bushels 

 in a single season. Hazel-nuts are received also from 

 Italian and other Mediterranean ports, the total quantity, 

 it is estimated, approaching three hundred thousand 

 bushels annually. 



Over the derivation of the various names there hangs 

 considerable uncertainty. "Corylus" occurs in Ovid, 

 and the adjective derived from it, columns, in Virgil. 

 "Avellana" is from an ancient geographical name. 

 "Hazel" is Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian. "Filbert," 

 in the face of various conjectures, still waits satisfactory 

 explanation. 



