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Champion Information:
Height (Ft): 50
Circumference (In): 66
Average Crown Spread (Ft): 42
Total Points: 127
Nominator Name: Tom Morgan
Location: Lincoln County
Species Information:
Uses
Beaked hazelnut is commercially grown for the edible nuts and used in wildlife habitat plantings to provide cover and nuts, which are eaten by squirrels, deer, grouse and pheasant. American Indians -- picked in early autumn, stored until fully ripe, and then roasted or eaten raw, also used the nuts. They were pounded into cakes with berries, meat, or animal fat and also boiled to extract the oil, which was used as flavoring. The nut's milk was used to cure coughs and colds, to heal cuts, and as an astringent. The wood was fashioned into arrows, fishing traps, hooks, and spoons and the long, flexible shoots were twisted into rope.
Beaked hazelnut has
limited ornamental value and cultivars apparently have not been developed.
Status
Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural Resources for this plant’s current status, such as, state noxious status, and wetland indicator values.
Description
General: Birch family (Betulaceae.: Native shrubs or small trees growing 1-8(-15) meters tall, rhizomatous and forming colonial thickets; main stems (or trunk) straight, with spreading, ascending branches, the twigs light brown, sometimes with glandular hairs. Leaves are deciduous, alternate, nearly round to narrowly ovate or ovate-oblong, with a heart-shaped or rounded base, often nearly angular and slightly lobed near the tip, 4-10 cm long, blunt to broadly acute, doubly serrate, usually pubescent on major veins and in vein axils, the petiole with or without glandular hairs. Male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers are separate, but both types present on each plant (the species monoecious); male flowers numerous in long, pendulous stalks (catkins) 4-6 cm long, in clusters of 2-3 near branch tips, appearing in the fall but opening the following spring; female flowers: several in a scaly bud, tiny and inconspicuous with only bright red stigma and styles protruding from the otherwise gray-brown buds, almost completely enclosed by bracts, near the end of the twigs. Fruit is an acorn-like nut about 2 cm in diameter, completely concealed by two, leafy, coarsely toothed (husk-like) bracts fused at the tip and forming an extended tubular beak. The common name refers to the bracteal beak of the fruit; “hazel” from the Old English name for filbert.
Distribution and Adaptation
From the northern half of California to Oregon, Washington, and southern British Columbia, along the pacific coast. Damp rocky slopes and stream banks in coastal mountain ranges, at 1000--2500 meters elevation. Flowering: very early spring, before leafing; fruiting: fall.
Management
Beaked hazelnut is removed by growers of commercial, closely managed forests, primarily because of its aggressive colonial habit and corresponding competition with timber trees.
From Plant Database: www.plants.usda.gov
