Hazel is a member of the birch family and is a great tree to have in the wood. The main picture shows a spindly hazel tree covered in catkins caught in the low winter sunshine. The hazel is a survivor of a previous impact from the rotting pine tree stem that can be seen crossing the picture. Despite some years ago being hammered by the falling pine the hazel has managed to put down new roots and start to grow from those new roots. Hazels have this amazing ability to take the knocks and make the best of whatever new situation is thrust on them. This stems from the tree being able to convert branch buds into roots when placed in contact with the soil. Various other woodland plants have this property including honeysuckle and brambles.
The drooping catkins are one part of the hazels reproductive approach. They are the male flowers and appear in autumn. The catkins are stuffed full of pollen which when brushed or shaken billows out in a small cloud.
The female part of the hazel looks like a bud at the base of the male catkin but will have a small red flower. These flowers will form sometime between February and April and be there before the leaves come out. The male and female flowers exist on the same tree with the nuts forming on the female flower and maturing in late summer/early autumn.
I will be very lucky if I get to harvest any of the hazel nuts as they are loved by the grey squirrels, field mice and the occasional dormouse if we have them in the wood.
Unlike hazel the wild cherry seems to be a strict adherent to the three score years and ten approach. That is once the wild cherry reaches its allotted time it simply keels over and takes whatever is in its path out with it. And once on the ground it simply rots away incapable of regeneration it would seem. However the wild cherry bark is made of sterner stuff than the branches and it survives intact whilst the branch rots away. this leaves the impression of a skeleton inside the clothes that it was wearing when it fell over.
More next time………
Tim Burr 