CORYLUS 401 



wide ; the lower half irregularly toothed, the terminal half often shallowly 

 lobed as well as toothed ; downy on both surfaces, but especially beneath ; 

 stalk glandular-hairy, to i in. long. Male catkins i to 2^ ins. long. Nut 

 | in. long, set in a husk about or scarcely as long as itself, the margins of 

 which are cut into shallow, often toothed lobes. 



Native of Europe (including Britain), W. Asia, and N. Africa. This is the 

 hazel whose nuts are among those commonly eaten for dessert. It is really a 

 shrub for the woodland rather than the garden, and on many properties a 

 brake of it is grown for the sake of the nuts. In autumn, the hazel frequently 

 turns a soft pleasing yellow, but its chief attraction as an ornamental shrub is 

 in the abundance and earliness of its male catkins. These form in the autumn, 

 and remain as short, dark, cylindrical bodies all the winter. About mid- 

 February the anthers burst, and they then become a soft yellow ; at that time 

 a bush well in flower makes an attractive picture. The branches of the hazel 

 are extremely supple, and on this account the shrub was in earlier times much 

 used to form the pleached alleys or shaded walks in the vicinity of the old 

 chateaux of France. The pliancy of hazel rods renders them useful for 

 various purposes, such as hoops for crates, etc. The twigs are used by water- 

 diviners. There are several varieties of hazel, most of them grown for the 

 qualities of the nut. Those of interest as ornamental shrubs are as follows : 



Var. AUREA. Leaves a poor yellow. 



Var. CONTORTA. Twigs remarkably curled and twisted. This curious 

 variety was discovered about 1863, in a hedgerow at Frocester, in Gloucester- 

 shire. (See figure in Gardeners' Chronicle, September 29, 1894, p. 380.) 



Var. LACINIATA. Leaves smaller and more downy than in the type, and 

 of oval outline. Their most distinctive character, and one which renders them 

 very pretty, is the deep lobing all round the blade. These lobes are triangular 

 and penetrate about one-third of the distance to the midrib, being themselves 

 sharply toothed. The variety was called " heterophylla " by Loudon, but in 

 view of the existence of a Japanese species of that name, it is better to use the 

 name given here, which is now commonly adopted. 



Var. PENDULA. A weeping variety which, trained up to form a trunk or 

 grafted high, makes a small pretty tree. 



Var. PURPUREA. This is of more recent origin than the purple variety of 

 C. maxima, and is not so coarse a grower. The purple of the leaves is not 

 so heavy and dark. 



C. CHINENSIS, Franchet. CHINESE HAZEL. 



(C. Colurna var. chinensis, Burkill^) 



Nearly allied to the Turkish hazel (C. Colurna), this species may be 

 distinguished by its darker coloured, much more persistently glandular-downy 

 young shoots, leaf-stalks, and midrib ; by the leaf-margins being more finely 

 and evenly toothed (not lobed as in C. Colurna) ; and by the base being more 

 unequally, if not so deeply heart-shaped. It was introduced by Wilson about 

 1900 from Hupeh, China, to the Coombe Wood nursery, where, as at Kew, 

 young trees grow well, and promise to make fine trees. Mr Wilson tells me he 

 saw it up to 120 ft. high in a wild state. Cultivated trees are not likely to 

 bear fruit for some years to come, but Henry, who several times collected this 

 hazel in Hupeh and Szechuen, describes the husk as constricted above the 

 nut, its lobes forked, the ultimate segments pointed and sickle-shaped. The 

 leaves are up to 6 or 7 ins. long, with as many as thirteen pairs of primary 

 veins. 



C. COLURNA, Linnceus. TURKISH HAZEL. 



A tree up to 70 or 80 ft. high, with a trunk sometimes 7 ft. or more in 

 girth, covered with pale scaling bark ; young shoots yellowish at first, glandular 



2 C 



