Hazel flowers provide a vital source of early nectar for many bumble bee species. Hazel nuts are also eaten by woodpeckers, nuthatches, tits, woodpigeons, jays and other native mammals such as the red squirrel, wood mouse, yellow-necked mouse and bank vole. Hazel provides an important food source for the dormouse, both in terms of the insects found upon it (especially caterpillars) and its nuts, which are the main food dormice use to fatten up for hibernation. Coppice areas of hazel provide open flowery habitats that support many fritillary species of butterfly. Its leaves provide food for many moth species, notably the large emerald, small white wave, barred umber and nut-tree tussock moths. Hazel is a very valuable tree for wildlife. Cultivated varieties of hazel nuts are still grown in Kent (known as Kentish cobnuts) but most of our hazelnuts are now imported. The nuts are edible, and hazel was also grown in the UK for large-scale nut production until the early 1900s. The resulting timber is used in many rural crafts. ![]() Today, hazel coppice has become an important management method in wildlife conservation of woodland habitats and is practised at many sites and in restoration schemes to help support some of our rarer native species. Coppiced stems were durable and had a variety of uses including wattles for wattle and daub plaster work, hurdles for fencing, thatching spars, wood fuel and charcoal for gun powder. In the past, hazel was an important tree economically. It is always produced in small diameters. Hazel timber is pale brown, straight grained and very hard. These were grown together to provide mixed sizes of timber for constructing traditional wooden buildings. Older woodland may still comprise ‘coppice with stands’ a mix of coppiced hazel with taller trees such as oak. It is therefore found growing commonly in this form, particularly in the south of England, and because of the longevity of this method many species of wildlife have become adapted to the coppiced environment. Hazel has been grown for its wood for centuries using coppicing – a traditional method that involves cutting trees to ground level and allowing them to re-grow, producing multiple long thin stems. In the UK it is commonly found as an understorey species in lowland oak, ash or birch woodland as well as in scrub and hedgerows. Native to the UK and across a wide area of Europe, parts of north Africa and western Asia. Fruits are oval (1–2cm) and hang in groups of one to four, maturing into a nut with a woody shell surrounded by a collar of leafy bracts. Female flowers are small and bud-like with red styles 5mm. Male flowers appear before the leaves and are long (2–8cm) pendulous catkins, yellow, hanging in clusters. ![]() Hazel is monoecious: both male and female flowers are found on the same tree. Leaves are alternate along the stem 10cm, round-oval, doubly toothed, downy above and below with a pointed tip. It has coppery-brown smooth, peeling bark. Hazel can grow as a small tree with a single stem but is more frequently found as a multi-stemmed shrub. Lifespan: The normal lifespan is around 70–80 years, but coppicing enables this tree to live to great ages of several hundred years. Hazel ( Corylus avellana ) is a deciduous tree growing to around 10m and flowering January to April. Hazel belongs to the genus Corylus and is a member of the Birch family ( Betulaceae). It is often associated with a rich ground flora of woodland flowers. Hazel scrub woodland covers extensive areas of limestone, particularly on the Burren plateaus of north Clare and soils derived from limestone in the Glens of Antrim. Hazel grows as an under storey in oak and ash woodlands or as pure hazel woods. Hazel nuts are one of the foodsĪssociated with the very earliest human settlements in Ireland of Mesolithic man, who also used hazel as the strong flexible timber for his huts. ![]() A native species with many uses and an ancient history.
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