What is "corylus cornuta"

filbert \fil"bert\, n. [Perh. fr. fill + bread, as filling the bread or husk; cf. G. bartnuss (lit., bread nut) filbert; or perh. named from a St.Philibert, whose day, Aug. 22, fell in the nutting season.]

1. (Bot.) The fruit of the Corylus Avellana or Corylus maxima, also called the hazel; the hazelnut. It is an oval nut, containing a kernel that has a mild, farinaceous, oily taste, agreeable to the palate.

   Note: In England filberts are usually large hazelnuts, especially the nuts from selected and cultivated trees. The American hazelnuts are of two other species, Corylus Americana and Corylus cornuta, and are also sometimes called filberts.

2. (Bot.) The tree bearing the filbert; the hazelnut tree.

   Filbert gall (Zo["o]l.), a gall resembling a filbert in form, growing in clusters on grapevines. It is produced by the larva of a gallfly ( Cecidomyia).

Corylus cornuta (Beaked Hazel) is a deciduous shrubby hazel found in most of North America, from southern Canada south to Georgia and California. It grows in dry woodlands and forest edges and can reach tall with stems thick with smooth gray bark. The leaves are rounded oval, coarsely double-toothed, long and broad, with hairy undersides. The flowers are catkins that form in the fall and pollinate in the following spring.

Corylus cornuta is named from its fruit, which is a nut enclosed in a husk with a tubular extension long that resembles a beak. Tiny filaments protrude from the husk and may stick into, and irritate, skin that contacts them. The spherical nuts, which are surrounded by a hard shell, are edible.

There are two varieties:

• Corylus cornuta var. cornuta – Eastern Beaked Hazel. Small shrub, 4 to 6 m tall; 'beak' longer, 3 cm or more.
• Corylus cornuta var. californica – Western Beaked Hazel or California Hazelnut. Large shrub, 4 to 15 m tall; 'beak' shorter, usually less than 3 cm. The Concow tribe called this variety gōm’-he’’-ni ( Konkow language).

The seeds are dispersed by jays and rodents such as red squirrels and least chipmunks. Although C. cornuta is somewhat shade tolerant, it is more common in open forests than denser ones. Fire kills the above-ground portion of the shrub, but it resprouts fairly readily after fire, and in fact American Indians in California and Oregon used fire to encourage hazelnut growth, as they used hazelnuts for food, baskets, medicine, and other purposes.

Image:Corylus cornuta, nut.jpg|Nut Image:Corylus cornuta, wings.jpg|Wings cornuta catkin Meadowbrook.JPG|Catkins cornuta female flower.jpg|Female flower