General: Birch family (Betulaceae). Native shrubs growing 1-3(-4) meters tall, strongly rhizomatous and forming colonial thickets; main stems (or trunk) straight, with spreading, ascending branches, the twigs slender, zigzag, light brown, with numerous stiff, red-glandular hairs. Leaves are deciduous, alternate, broadly oval with a heart-shaped or rounded base, 8-12(-15) cm long and 12 cm wide, acuminate, doubly serrate, hairy beneath, the petiole with stiff, 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) 8-10 cm long, in clusters of two or three near branch tips, appearing in the fall, but opening the following spring. Female flowers are several in a scaly bud, tiny and inconspicuous with only bright red stigma and styles protruding from the gray-brown buds, almost completely enclosed by bracts, near the end of the twigs. Fruit is a light brown, acorn-like nut 1-2 cm long, wider than long, enclosed in two, leafy, coarsely toothed (husk-like) bracts. The common name reflects its being native to North America and “hazel” is from the Old English name for filbert.

Variation within the species: several variants have been described within the species: Corylus americana var. indehiscens Palmer & Steyermark (fruit bracts united along one side) from southwestern Missouri; Corylus americana forma missouriensis (A. DC.) Fern. (petioles essentially glandless) from southeastern Kansas. These have not been generally recognized, and the species is currently treated with no formal variants.

Distinguished from beaked hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) by absence of a horned beak on the fruit.

Distribution: Widespread in eastern North America, Maine west to Saskatchewan and North Dakota, south to eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Georgia, not found along the Gulf coast region. For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.