Papery Husks

American hazelnuts, Schenley Park, July 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)
American hazelnuts, Schenley Park, July 2018 (photo by Kate St. John)

In late July, you may find nuts wrapped in papery green husks.

They’re American hazelnuts, Corylus americana, so closely related to the beaked hazel-nut Corylus cornuta that the two species can hybridize.  The nut wrappers tell them apart.

The husks on C. americana’s nuts are two leaf-like bracts with ragged tips. This photo by Paul Wray at forestryimages.org shows hairy leaf bracts and an unwrapped nut.

American hazel nut (photo by Paul Wray, Iowa State University via Bugwood.org, Creative Commons license)
American hazel nut (photo by Paul Wray, Iowa State University via Bugwood.org, Creative Commons license)

Beaked hazel-nut (C. cornuta) husks are so long and thin that they look like beaks, as seen in this photo from forestryimages.org.

Fruits of beaked hazelnut ((Caleb Slemmons, National Ecological Observatory Network, Bugwood.org, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License))
Fruits of beaked hazelnut (Caleb Slemmons, National Ecological Observatory Network, Bugwood.org, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License))

The nuts I found in Schenley Park don’t have long beaks but they aren’t quite the same as the C. americana photo above.

I wonder if they’re hybrids.

 

(two photos by Kate St. John. photo number 5556599 by Caleb Slemmons, National Ecological Observatory Network, at Bugwood.org)

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