Hazelnut

Where it grows

The common hazel is native to Europe, the Caucasus, and northern Anatolia. The closely related Turkish hazel and filbert are commercially important too. Turkey alone produces roughly 70 percent of the world’s hazelnut crop, almost all of it consumed in chocolate spreads and confectionery.

How to recognise it

Usually a multi-stemmed large shrub but capable of becoming a small tree. The rounded leaves are softly hairy with toothed margins. In late winter, long yellow male catkins hang from bare branches while tiny crimson female flowers — easily missed — open separately on the same plant. The nuts develop inside a leafy frill and ripen brown by autumn.

Uses

Hazelnuts are eaten raw, roasted, ground into praline, blended into chocolate spreads, and pressed for a fragrant oil. The straight pliable rods of coppiced hazel were the foundation of traditional English woodland industry, supplying thatching spars, hurdle fencing, hedge stakes, and walking sticks.

In folklore

Across Celtic, Norse, and Germanic folklore the hazel is associated with wisdom and divination — hazel rods were the original dowsing wands.