General: Deciduous shrub, 1-3 m tall with many stems, densely clumped or spreading by suckers; twigs sparsely to moderately hairy, sometimes glandular.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, elliptic to oval, leaf blades heart-shaped with a sharp-pointed tip, doubly saw-toothed, paler below than above, 4-10 cm long, turning yellow in the fall.
Flowers: Male flowers in catkins appearing before the leaves in spring; female flowers in a very small catkin with protruding red stigmas.
Fruits: Edible hard-shelled nuts completely enclosed by bristly bractlets, in 2's or 3's at the end of branches, barely 1.5 cm long, thinly hairy or glabrous.
Notes: Two varieties occur in BC:
1. Involucral beaks about twice as long as the fruit; silicles thinly short-hairy; twigs sparsely hairy............... var. cornuta
1. Involucral beaks about equal in length to the fruit; silicles glabrous; twigs hairy, sometimes glandular............... var. californica (A. DC.) Sharp
1. Twigs sparsely to moderately hairy, sometimes slightly glandular; silicles completely enclosed by bristly bractlets.....................C. cornuta
1. Twigs both hairy and glandular, silicles not completely enclosed by the thinly downy, lacerated bractlets.................................C. avellana
Habitat / Range
Mesic sites in the lowland and montane zones; var. cornuta - common south of 57degreeN east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, var. californica - frequent on S Vancouver Island and the lower Fraser Valley, becoming rare to the east; E to NF and S to GA (var. cornuta) and E to ID and S to CA (var. californica).
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to montane. transcontinental North American deciduous shrub. Occurs in cool temperate and cool mesothermal climates on moderately dry to fresh. calcium-rich and nitrogen-rich soils (Moder and Mull humus forms). Sporadic in disturbed forests on water-shedding sites; its occurrence decreases with increasing latitude and precipitation. and increases with increasing continentality. Characteristic of young-seral broad-leaved forests.
