The **hazel (Corylus avellana)** is a native British tree, more often seen as a many-stemmed shrub of hedgerow and woodland understorey. It is one of the most useful plants in a forest garden, giving nuts, craft material and dense wildlife cover all at once. **Fascinating notes:** - Hazel is wind-pollinated. The dangling yellow male catkins — "lambs' tails" — appear in late winter, while the female flowers are tiny crimson tufts barely the size of a bud. - It coppices superbly: cut to the base, it regrows vigorously, and managed coppice has supplied hurdles, bean poles, pea sticks, thatching spars and charcoal for centuries. - Hazel woodland is the classic home of the dormouse, and the nuts feed squirrels, jays, woodpeckers and woodmice. - A "cobnut" is the cultivated hazelnut; a "filbert" is technically the closely related *Corylus maxima*, whose husk fully encloses the nut.