Hazel

a shrub or small tree belonging to the cupbearing family, which includes the oak, the chestnut, and other trees whose nuts are borne in cups. The drooping catkins furnish pollen. The pistils may be seen in early spring when pollen is falling. Look for them on the ends of little branchlets. We have two hazelnuts in the east, the American and the beaked. The bracts, or cup, of the latter are prolonged beyond the nut into a bristly beak from a third of an inch to an inch in length. The nut is also more pointed. A shorter beaked hazel grows also on the Pacific coast. There are eleven kinds in all. Filberts are European hazelnuts reared in plantations and shipped to this country. Promising attempts have been made to raise filberts in California. London buys a half a million dollars worth of filberts a year. See Nuts