468 
where these seeds are sown, under two years, if the plants should not come up sooner. When the 
plants are come up, they should be duly watered in dry weather, and kept clean from weeds; and 
the autumn following they may be removed, and planted in beds in the nursery, where they may 
remain two years, by which time they will be fit to transplant where they are to remain. The best 
season for this is in the autumn. 
Genus 12. Co ryl us. Hazel. Class XXI. Monoecia. 
Order VIII. Polyandria. 
Species 1. Common Hazel-nut. (Corylus Avellana.) 
The Hazel-nut or Nut-tree, is properly a shrub. The trunk is covered with a whitish cloven 
bark, which is smooth on the branches, frequently of a bay colour, and spotted with white; on the 
shoots it is sometimes smooth, sometimes hairy, ash-coloured and green, with white tubercles. 
Leaves alternate* gash-serrate, wrinkled, with hairs on both sides standing out, dark green above, 
bright green beneath, on very hairy round petioles, half an inch in length: the midrib beneath is 
white and hairy; from that several white nerves proceed vertically; and between these is a veiny 
net.* 
The male catkins appear in autumn, and wait for the expansion of the female gems in the 
spring. The styles are of a bright red colour, long and setaceous.p The flowering branches, 
especially those which bear the fertile flowers, are set with short fine hairs terminating in globules. 
The catkins are in pairs, of a yellowish green colour: the middle segment of the scales pointed at 
the end. Anthers hairy.J 
White and Red Filberts. The shrubs of these varieties grow more erect than the common 
Hazel, and the stipules are different in shape. Mr. Miller having found these not to vary, except 
in the size and colour of the fruit, makes them a distinct species. 
The involucre is tubular, fleshy at bottom, turgid, thick, torn at top; the nut ovate-oblong and 
large. The outer skin of the kernel, dark red. 
The Cob-nut has a very large round fruit. The Cluster-nut has the fruit growing in great clus¬ 
ters at the ends of the branches. 
The Hazel, says Swinburn, has the name Avellana from Avellino, a city of the kingdom of 
Naples, about which it is cultivated. It covers the whole face of the neighbouring valley, and in 
good years brings in a profit of 60,000 ducats (11,2501.) The nuts are mostly of the large round 
filbert, which we call Spanish. They were originally imported into Italy from Pontus, and known 
among the Romans by the appellation of Nilt Pontica, which in process of time was changed into 
that of Nux Avellana, from the place where they had been propagated with the greatest success. 
The Common Hazel-nut is wild in many woods and coppices in England, whence the fruit is 
gathered in plenty, and sent to the London markets by the country people. 
It also serves very well for thickening woods; and when allowed to grow, will make poles of 
twenty feet, but it is generally cut down sooner for walking sticks, fishing rods, withes for faggot- 
ting, &c. for which purposes it is esteemed a profitable wood. 
I he uses of it recited by Evelyn are—for poles, spars, hoops, forks, angling-rods, faggots, 
cudgels, coals, and springes to catch birds, withes and bands, the chips to purify wine, hurdles and 
* Pollich. 
f Lighlfoot. 
X Withering. 
