1. C. AVELLA'NA L. The common Hazel Nut. Identification. Hort. Cliff., 448.; Fl. Suec., 787. 873.; Mat. Med., 204.; Hort. Ups., 286.; Roy Lugdb., 81.; Dalib. Paris., 294.; Gmel. Sib., 1. p. 150. Mill. Dict., No. 1.; Scop. Carn., No. 1192.; Du Roy Harbk., 1. p. 173.; Gmel. Ib., 1. No. 66.; Pollich Pall, No. 912.; Blackw., t. 293.; Kniph. Cent., I. No. 19.; Hoffm. Germ., 359.; Roth Germ., 1. p. 409., 2. p. 490.; Willd. Sp. Pl., 4. p. 470.; Eng. Flor., 4. p. 157.; Eng. Bot., t. 723.; Brit. Fl., 1. p. 410.; Hook. Br. Fl., p. 405.; Mackay FL. Hibern., p. 256.; Lindl. Synop., p. 240.; N. Du Ham., 4. p. 19.; Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836. Engravings. Blackw., t. 293.; Eng. Bot., t. 723.; N. Du Ham., 4. t. 5. ; and our fig. 1941., in which a is a sprig in blossom; b, one in fruit; c, the nut without its calyx; and d, the kernel Synonymes. Coudrier Noisetier, Fr.; Haselstrauch, Nussbaum, Ger.; Avellano, Nocciolo, Ital.; Avellano, Span. Derivation. Avellana is derived from Avellino, see p. 2020. Hazel is from the Anglo-Saxon word hasil, which signifies a head-dress. Noisette signifies a small nut; and Nussbaum, a nut tree. Spec. Char.,&c. Stipules oblong-obtuse. Leaves roundish, cordate, pointed. Involucre of the fruit campanulate, rather spreading, torn at the margin. (Willd.) A shrub or low tree; a native of Europe and the east and west of Asia; growing to the height of 20 ft. and upwards; but commonly found in the character of a bush, as undergrowth in woods, especially of the oak. 1941 Varieties. These are numerous; and they may be divided into two classes; viz., botanical or ornamental varieties, and those cultivated for their fruit. A. Botanical Varieties. C. A. 1 sylvestris Ait. Hort. Kew., v. p. 303.; C. Avellana Svensk C. A. 2 pumilus; C. pùmilus Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; is rather dwarfer C. A. 3 heterophylla; C. heterophylla Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; C. laciniàta Hort.; C. urticifòlia Hort.; the various, or nettle, leaved, Hazel; has the leaves variously cut, and thickly covered with hairs. C. A. 4 purpurea; C. purpurea Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; C. àtro-purpurea Hort.; has the leaves of a dark red or purple, and is a very striking variety. If grafted standard high on C. Colúrna, this would make a most singular and beautiful small tree. B. Varieties cultivated for their Fruit. The cultivated hazels are of two kinds; viz., nuts and filberts. The former are distinguished by the shortness of their calyxes, or husks, and the latter by their length; but, in consequence of the numerous crosses between these two classes of varieties, the distinction can scarcely now be kept up. The term filbert, is supposed, according to some, to be a corruption of full beard, alluding to the husk; but the old English poet Gower assigns the name a different and more poetical origin; which is rendered plausible by the fact of the old English name being philberd. In the Horticultural Society's Catalogue of Fruits, 31 sorts are enumerated; but the kinds best deserving of culture for their fruit, and also as ornamental shrubs or low trees, are considered by Mr. Thomson to be only 5, which we have distinguished among those hereafter enumerated by a star. C. A. 5 tubulòsa; C. tubulòsa Willd. which was anciently used in medicine as a powerful astringent. Miller and Willdenow considered this as a species; the former stating that it comes true from seed. *C. A. 6 tubulòsa álba; C. sativa álba Ait. Hort. Kew., 1. c.; C. A. álba Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; white Filbert, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 19.; weisse Langbartnuss, Ger.; only differs from the preceding variety in having the pellicle of its kernel white. It is mentioned by Miller (ed. 1759), as a variety of the preceding. C. A. 7 crispa Encyc. of Plants; the frizzled *C. A. 8 tenuis Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; the C. A. 9 glomerata Bauh. Pin., 418., Ait. Hort. Kew., iv. p. 303.; C. A. glomerata Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; Cluster Nut, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 6.; Noisetier à Grappes, Fr.; has the fruit produced in clusters. **C. A. 10 barcelonensis Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; C. sativa grándis Bauh. Pin., 418., Ait. Hort. Kew., v. p. 303.; C. A. grandis Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; the Cob Nut, syn. the Barcelona Nut, Downton large Nut, &c., Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 8.; forms a tree of upright growth, with a short, ovate, slightly compressed nut, having a thick and very strong hard shell, well filled by the kernel. This variety was introduced by Ray, from Barcelona, before 1665. C. A. 11 Lamberti; C. Lambérti Lodd. Cat., ed. 1836; the Spanish Nut, syn. large Bond Nut, Lambert's Nut, Lambert's large Nut, Toker Nut, &c., Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 29.; has a large oblong nut, with a very thick shell. The name of Lambert's Nut we suppose to be a corruption of the German word Langbartnuss; literally, the longbearded nut, or filbert. Other Varieties. In the selection made by Mr. Thomson for our Suburban Gardener, he recommends, besides those marked with a star in the above list, the following:- The great Cob Nut, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 9. The nut is roundish, with a thick shell, and one of the largest in cultivation.-The Downton large square Nut, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 13. The fruit is large, short, and obtusely 4-sided.-The Northampton Nut, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 25. Oblong fruit, very good.-The Northamptonshire Prolific, Hort. Soc. Cat., No. 27., an oblong nut, middle-sized, with a thick shell, and very early. Description, &c. The common hazel nut is a large shrub, with numerous stems rising from the root; or a small bushy tree, with copious branches, which are hairy or glandular when young. The bark is ash-coloured, and sometimes cloven on the trunk, but of a clear bright brown, frequently spotted with white on the branches. The leaves are roundish, stalked, and alternate: they are of a darkish green, and slightly downy above; but paler, and more downy beneath. The male catkins are terminal and clustered; they are long and pendulous, greyish, and opening in early spring, before the appearance of the leaves. "The ovate scaly buds, containing the female flowers, become conspicuous, at the same time, by their tufts of crimson stigmas. The nuts, two or three from each bud, are sessile, roundish-ovate, and half-covered by the jagged outer calyx of their respective flowers, greatly enlarged and permanent." (Smith.) The rate of growth, under favourable circumstances, is from 1 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. for the first two or three years after planting; after which, if trained to a single stem, the tree grows slower; attaining the height of 12 ft. in 10 years, and never growing much higher, unless drawn up by other trees. It grows remarkably well under the shade of other trees, but not under their drip. Its shoots are completed early in the season; and its leaves take their rich yellow autumnal tint early in the autumn, remaining on a long time, and only dropping off after a severe frost. Hence the great beauty of hazel coppices, especially when mixed with a few evergreens, such as the holly, the yew, and the box. Left to itself, it generally forms a huge bush, with numberless sucker-like branches proceeding from the root. When cut down to the ground, it stoles with great luxuriance, forming shoots from 3 ft. to 6 ft. in length the first season; and its duration, when so treated, exceeds a century. When treated as a tree with a single stem, it will probably live much longer. The largest nut trees which we recollect to have seen in England are in Eastwell Park, Kent; where, drawn up among thorns, crab trees, and common maples, they are upwards of 30 ft. high, with trunks 1 ft. in diameter at the surface of the ground. Geography. The hazel is a native of all the temperate climates of Europe and Asia. In Great Britain, it is found from Cornwall to Sutherlandshire : in the north of England, it attains to the elevation of 1600 ft. (Winch); and it is found at about the same height on the hills of Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire. (Watson's Outlines, &c.) In Lochiel, Argyllshire, between 700 ft. and 800 ft. above the sea, there was, in 1832, a small wood of nut trees, producing abundance of fruit, and some of them with trunks of above 1 ft. in circumference. (Ibid.) The line of nuts on the Alps, between 45° and 46°, is stated by H. C. Watson to rise to 3798 ft., the snow line being 9080 ft. In Sweden, according to Professor Schouw, the hazel is found on the west side of Heligoland, in lat. 60°; while on the eastern side of the great mountain range it reaches to lat. 60-61°; and, though met with more to the northward, in the Gulf of Bothnia, yet it does not there go beyond 63°. In short, it is considered as not extending beyond the region of the beech. (See Gard. Mag., xii. p. 60.) Evelyn observes that the hazel" affects cold, barren, dry, and sandy grounds; mountainous, and even rocky, soils produce them; they prosper where quarries of freestone lie underneath, as at Hazelbury in Wiltshire, Hazelingfield in Cambridgeshire, Hazelmere in Surrey, and other places; but more plentifully if the ground be somewhat moist, dankish, and mossy, as in the fresher bottoms and sides of hills, holts, and in hedgerows." (Hunt. Evel., i. p. 215.) In Kent, where the hazel abounds in all the native woods, and where the cultivated varieties are to be found in most orchards, the tree thrives best on a calcareous loam on chalk or rock; but in Scotland it is found on granite, basalt, and freestone. History. The first mention that we find of the hazel tree is in the Bible; where, in Genesis (c. xxx. v. 37.), we are told that "Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods," in order to make the cattle under his care conceive streaked young. This has excited much discussion among commentators; and the general opinion seems to be, that luz (Heb.) is rightly translated hazel; though great doubt exists as to the tree there designated the chestnut; which most commentators suppose to be the plane. (See p. 1992.) The hazel nut was known both to the Greeks and Romans: the latter especially frequently mention it. The filbert is said to have been brought originally from Pontus; whence it was called by the Romans Nux Pontica. The hazel, or Nux Avellana, we are told by Virgil, in the Georgics, was considered by the Romans to be as injurious to the vines, on account of its spreading roots, as the goat was for its propensity to browse on the young shoots; and the keepers of the vineyards used to sacrifice the goat to Bacchus, and roast its entrails on hazel spits. Virgil also mentions that they used hazel twigs to bind their vines. The common hazel was called by the Romans Nux Avellana, from Avellino, a city in Naples; where, Swinburne tells us, in after times, nuts were cultivated in such abundance, as, in favourable seasons, to produce a profit of 11,250l. "I do not," says Evelyn, "confound the filbert Pontic, or filberd, distinguished by its beard, with our foresters, or bald hazel nuts, which, doubtless, we had from abroad, and bearing the names of Avelan, Avelin, as I find in some ancient records and deeds in my custody, where my ancestors' names were written Avelan, alias Evelin, generally." In the dark ages, the hazel was highly valued for its supposed divining powers. The following passage from Evelyn shows the popular belief in his time on this subject:" Lastly, for riding-switches and divinatory rods, for the detecting and finding out of minerals (at least, if that tradition be no imposture); it is very wonderful, by whatever occult virtue, the forked stick (so cut, and skilfully held) becomes impregnated with those invisible steams and exhalations, as, by its spontaneous bending from a horizontal posture, to discover not only mines and subterraneous treasure, and springs of water, but criminals guilty of murder, &c.; made out so solemnly, and the effects thereof, by the attestation of magistrates, and divers other learned and credible persons (who have critically examined matters of fact), is certainly next to a miracle, and requires a strong faith. Let the curious, therefore, consult the philosophical treatise of Dr. Vallemont (Physique Occult, ou Traité de la Baguet divinatore), which will at least entertain them with a world of surprising things." The belief that certain gifted persons possessed the power of discovering hidden water or metal, by means of a divining-rod, is as old as the time of the Romans; but the virgula Mercurialis was not always made of hazel, or even of wood, but sometimes of brass or other metal. About the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the art was called rhabdomancy; and persons naturally gifted for practising it were called rhabdomists. The diviner took a hazel rod, which was either curved or forked, and held it by the two ends, so that its curvature was inclined outwards. If the person who held the rod possessed the power of rhabdomancy, and approached any metallic vein, or other magnetic substance, or came near them, a slow rotatory motion of the rod ensued in different directions, according to particular circumstances. (See Physical and Historical Researches into Rhabdomancy, &c.; Elementi di Elettrometria Animale, &c. &c.) In other cases, the rod was peeled, and then laid on the palm of the hand, with the but end of the twig on the pulse of the wrist; and the diviner moved slowly along, till the rod pointed to the desired place; the rhabdomist feeling, at the same time, either a violent acceleration or retardation of the pulse, and a sudden sensation of great heat or great cold. (See Heinskingla, eller Suorro Sturleson's Nordlänske Konuga Sagor., p. 1. c. vii.; Martin and Rio's Disquisitorum Magicorum libri sex.) Sir Walter Scott makes Douster Swivel, in the Antiquary, use a hazel twig as a divining-rod; and several instances are mentioned, in different volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine, of divining-rods having been in use in England as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. The following passage, quoted in the Mirror (vol. xxi. p. 58.), and said to have been found written in an old edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in 1640, will show the manner in which the diviningrod was used about that period:-"The finding of gold which is under the earth, as of all other mines of metal, is almost miraculous. They cut up a ground hazel of a twelvemonth's growth, which divides above into a fork, holding the one branch in the right hand, and the other in the left, not held too slightly, or too strictly. When passing over a mine, or any other place where gold or silver is hidden, it will discover the same by bowing down violently; a common experiment in Germany, not proceeding from any incantation, but a natural sympathy, as iron is attracted by the loadstone." The rods of Saracens and magicians, according to the Dictionnaire des Eaux et Forêts, were also of hazel. Numerous other virtues were anciently attributed to hazel rods. The ashes of the shells of its nuts, applied to the back of a child's head, were supposed to turn the child's eyes from grey to black; and Parkinson says, "Some doe hold that these nuts, and not wallnuts, with figs and rue, was Mithridates' medicine, effectuall against poysons. The oyle of the nuts is effectuall for the same purposes." He also says that, "if a snake be stroke with an hasell wand, it doth sooner stunne it, than with any other strike; because it is so pliant, that it will winde closer about it; so that, being deprived of their motion, they must needs dye with paine and want; and it is no hard matter, in like manner, saith Tragus, to kill a mad dog that shall be strook with an hazel sticke, such as men use to walke or ride withall." (Theat. of Plants, p. 1416.) Evelyn says that the "venerable and sacred fabric of Glastonbury, founded by Joseph of Arimathea, is storied to have been first composed of a few hazel rods interwoven about a few stakes driven into the ground.' The nut has been cultivated for its fruit since the time of the Romans; who, according to Sir William Temple, called Scotland Caledonia, from Cal-Dun, the hill of hazel. On the Continent, the hazel is grown in large quantities in Spain, and in some parts of Italy; and the fruit from the former country is celebrated throughout Europe. In Great Britain, it is most extensively cultivated in Kent; and, the produce being easily sent every where, and not suffering either by carriage or keeping, the tree is not much grown for its fruit in private gardens. Poetical and legendary Allusions. Virgil alludes to the hazel in his Georgics, as we have before mentioned (p. 2020.); and again in his Eclogues, giving it the epithets of hard and dense. The hazel, however, was not nearly so great a favourite with the Latin poets as with those of the middle ages. The troubadours, and old French romance writers, have scarcely a song that does not allude to the hazel bush or hazel nut. Our own poets have also been lavish on the same theme. Cowley mentions that the hazel is the favourite resort of the squirrel:· "Upon whose nutty top A squirrel sits, and wants no other shade Thomson, in his Spring, describes birds as building and, in his Autumn, the lover searching for "the clustering nuts" for his fair one; and, when he finds them,— "Amid the secret shade; And where they burnish on the topmost bough, Seasons. |
