Hazel

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Wild Food

By Roger Phillips

Published 1986

  • About

Corylus avellana The hazel is common throughout the British Isles, occurring in woods, scrub and hedges. It flowers from December to April and the nuts are borne from late August to October.

Hazelnut

The English name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘haesel knut’ from ‘haesel’, a hat or cap, and thus meaning a cap-nut or nut enclosed in a cap. The tree was cultivated by the Romans and the numerous references to it in early Gaelic literature and poetry suggest that it provided an important source of food in the Celtic diet.