Corylus cornuta
Leaves and nuts
The Beak Beak hazel or hazel ( Corylus cornuta ) is a shrub or tree of the birch family. Its distribution area is located in Canada and the United States.
Description
The Beak hazel is an up 4-8, rarely up to 15 meters tall shrub or tree with light to dark brown, smooth bark and soft hairy branches. The winter buds of flowers are ovoid, 3-5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide and pointed. The leaves have a 0.6 to 1.2 centimeters long, bare, hairy or glandular hairy stem. The leaf blade is 4 to 10 inches long and 3.5 to 12 inches wide, ovate to obovate, pointed or rounded with heart-shaped base and finely serrated and barely lobed margin. The lower leaf surface is soft hairy. The male inflorescences are arranged in groups of two to three, 4-6 centimeters long and 0.5 to 0.8 centimeters in diameter kittens with 0.5 to 10 millimeters long stems and yellow stamens. The nuts grow in clusters of two to six. They are 1.2 to 1.8 inches long and a fluffy, hairy on the nut to a 3 to 4 -inch-long tube ( "beak " ) contracted sheath surrounded.
Distribution and location
The distribution area extends across much of Canada and the United States. Where it grows in cool moist forests or thickets on well drained, moist to wet, moderately nutrient-rich, sandy- gravelly - humic or loamy soils in full sun to light shade, summer cool and winter cold locations. The species is frost hardy.
System
The beak - hazel (Corylus cornuta ) is a species in the genus of hazel (Corylus ) in the birch family ( Betulaceae ). It is assigned to the section Corylus, subsection Siphonochlamys. It was first described in 1785 by Humphry Marshall.
There are two subspecies:
- Corylus cornuta subsp. cornuta with ovate to almost elliptical leaf blades, branches without glandular hairs and a beak with at least twice the length of the nut.
- Corylus cornuta subsp. californica with almost round or broadly elliptic leaf blades, branches with glandular pubescence and shorter beak. The occurrence of the subspecies extends along the Pacific coast of North America.
Use
The Beak hazel is rarely used forestry. It is used because of its fruits as an ornamental plant and also serves as bee pasture. The nuts are edible, but no economic significance. From the Indians parts of the plant have been used as an emetic and against worm infestation.