Hazel - Corylus avellana

Shrub to 6 metres, rather upright with smooth brown bark. Leaves rounded, sharp pointed, toothed, downy. Flowers appearing before the leaves. Male catkins yellow, pendent, female flowers tiny and bud like with red styles. Fruit a nut, solitary or several together, each enclosed in a leafy husk and is edible. Fresh twigs usually with red-tipped glandular hairs.

Woods and hedgerows.

January to March.

Deciduous.

Common throughout Britain.

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 421 of the 617 tetrads.