Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/134

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
522
The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland

acute and falcate. This variety occurs in China, and grows to about 40 feet high in mixed forests in Yunnan, Szechwan, and Hupeh.

Apparently no varieties have originated in cultivation, but a hybrid has been obtained between this species and the common hazel, viz. :—

Corylus intermedia, Loddiges, Catalogue (1836) (Corylus avellana x Corylus Colurna, Rehder, Mitth. Deuts. Dendrol. Gesell. 1894, p. 43).—This is a tall shrub or small tree with the bark of the common hazel, ze. darker and less scaly and fissured than that of C. Colurna. The fruit resembles that of the last species, but is shorter and scarcely glandular. Specimens of this are growing in the Botanic Gardens of Jena and Gdttingen and in the Forestry Garden at Münden, but we know of none in England.

Identification

In summer the Turkish hazel is readily distinguishable by the scaly bark and the obovate leaves deeply cordate at the base and distichously placed on the branch- lets. In winter (Plate 126, Fig. 6) the following characters are available -—Twigs : brittle, shining, brownish-yellow, with few and inconspicuous lenticels and scattered glandular pubescence, usually, however, dense near the base of the shoot, which is ringed with the scars of the previous season’s bud-scales, one or two of the lowermost scales often persisting dry and darkened in colour; second year’s shoot with corky bark, which fissures and exfoliates slightly. True terminal bud absent, a small oval scar at the apex of the twig, on the side opposite to the highest leaf-scar, indicating where the tip of the shoot fell off in summer. Leaf-scars semicircular with three to six bundle-dots,’ somewhat obliquely set on prominent pulvini. Stipule-scars small, transverse, lunate, one on each side of the leaf-scar. Buds pretty uniform in size, alternate and distichous on the twig, from which they arise at a wide angle, ovoid, rounded at the apex; scales about ten, imbricated, pubescent, ciliate in margin. Pith small, circular. Male catkins present in winter on flower-bearing trees.

Distribution

The Turkish hazel has a wide distribution, extending from south-eastern Europe, through Asia Minor and the Caucasus, to the Himalayas and Western China. In Europe it is found growing wild in Banat, Slavonia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Servia, Roumania, and Greece.? In Banat, according to Willkomm, it sometimes forms pure woods in the mountains; and in Northern Albania it ascends as a bush to 3000 feet altitude.* It occurs in Asia Minor in Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Anatolia. According to Radde,’ it grows in small groups on the south side of the main chain of the Caucasus and in many localities in Georgia, at 3500 to 5000 feet elevation, where it is a stately tree 50 to 70 feet in height, and with a


1 The cicatrices left by the leaf-bundles on the leaf-scar are very irregular in number and shape, being circular dots or curved lines.

2 In Thessaly and Acarnania, according to Halacsy, Consp. Fl. Græcæ, iii, 135 (1904).

3 Beck, Veg. Illyrischen Lander, 300 (1901).

4 Pflanzenverb. Kaukasusländ, 187 (1899).