Twigs brittle, the young shoots glandular pubescent, those of a year old glabrous and brown in colour, the bark of older shoots becoming corky. Leaves 3 to 5 inches long by 2 to 4 inches wide, broadly oval, ovate, or obovate, deeply cordate at the base, acuminate at the apex, doubly serrate or with large serrate teeth, dark green above, lower surface lighter green and sparingly pubescent, with glandular hairs on the principal nerves and midrib; nerves usually eight pairs; petiole 4 to 1 inch long, glandular pubescent or glabrescent. Catkins' 1½ to 3 inches long. Fruits crowded, three to ten in number, long, compressed, pubescent towards the apex. Involucres tomentose with intermixed glandular hairs, deeply and irregularly divided into linear, acute, stiff, long-pointed segments, which are either entire or toothed, exceeding in length two to three times the nut.
Seedling
The germination resembles that of the oak, the cotyledons, which are short- stalked, plano-convex and obovate, remaining in the seed and not being carried above ground. Caulicle stout, terete, tapering, ending in a long tap root with numerous branching fibres. Stem stout, terete, covered with numerous scattered glandular hairs, giving off an inch above the cotyledons a pair of opposite leaves, which are about 2 inches long, broadly ovate, acute at the apex, cordate at the base, with three to five pairs of lateral lobes, unequal in size, toothed and ciliate in margin; petiole ¾ inch, glandular-pubescent. Succeeding leaves are alternate and larger in size.
Varieties
In addition to the typical form described above, several geographical varieties occur, as the species is distributed over a wide area.
1. Var. glandulifera, A. de Candolle, Prod. xvi. 2, p. 132 (1864).—Occurs with the type in Europe and western Asia. In this variety the pubescence on the petioles, peduncles, and fruit-involucres is intermixed with glandular bristles; and the segments of the involucres are less acute and often dentate.
2. Var. lacera, A. de Candolle, op. cit. 131 (Corylus lacera, Wallich, List, 2798). —Leaves obovate, larger, up to 7 inches long, with ten to twelve pairs of nerves. Involucre-segments linear-lanceolate with glandular hairs. This variety occurs in the western Himalayas, from Kashmir to Nepal, at elevations of 6000 to 10,000 feet, and in many places is gregarious. Sir George Watt informs me that it is a handsome tree, usually growing in the mixed forests, and often attaining 80 feet in height.
3. Var. chinensis, Burkill, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxvi. 503 (1899) (Corylus chinensis, Franchet, Journ. de Bot. 1899, xiii. 197).—Leaves large, up to 7 inches long, with ten to twelve pairs of nerves, broadly ovate, unequal, acuminate ; petioles bristly. Involucres striate and constricted above the fruit, lobes forked, lobules
1 Abnormal male flowers with enlarged bracteoles are figured in Gard. Chron. xxvi. 691, fig. 135 (1886).
