104 
Dicotyledons with Incomplete Flowers — Cupuliferce . 
Diagnosis of the Genus. —Involucre usually wholly inclosing 2 nuts, splitting into 4 valves. 
Staminate flowers capitate on pendulous axillary peduncles. Ovary 3-celled. 
Leaves of Common Beech deciduous or withering in autumn and falling in spring; in Copper Beech (F. 
sylvatica , var. purpurea), with the cells of the leaves containing a purple juice which disguises the green colouring 
matter. 
Flowers monoecious ; staminate with a simple lobed perianth and 8-12 free stamens ; pistillate usually in pairs 
inclosed in a shortly pedunculate axillary involucre ; styles 3. 
Fruit a triangular nut. Embryo with fleshy plicate cotyledons. 
USES, &c.—The wood of Beech is very tenacious and elastic, valued for tools, shoe-lasts, and the like ; used 
also for common furniture and for submerged piles. The nuts are collected as food for pigs, &c., and afford an oil 
used in France both as food and in lamps. 
II. CORYLACEZE. 
IV. GENUS HAZEL (Corylus). —Including but few species, confined to the North Temperate 
zone, though common to both the Old and New World. Common Hazel (C. Avelland) is the only 
indigenous species in Britain; its range extends eastward to Central Asia. 
Diagnosis of the Genus. —Fruit in heads of 2 or 3, each with an open involucre of herbaceous 
laciniate bracts. Staminate flowers in pendulous cylindrical catkins, borne in the axil of minute scales, 
each of 4 (or apparently 8) stamens, the filaments being forked and each division bearing half an 
anther. 
Flowers in Hazel or Filbert developed in winter or early spring before the unfolding of the leaf-buds ; the 
pistillate flowers recognised by their minute tufted crimson stigmas. The ovary at the time of flowering is 
undeveloped. 
