Corylus sieboldiana var. sieboldiana (Asian beaked hazel, "Tsunohashibami")

Japanese name: ツノハシバミ （角榛）
Scientific name: Corylus sieboldiana var. sieboldiana

[Overview]
A deciduous shrub 4–5 m tall, found at sunny forest edges in the mountains and in the upper reaches of ravines.
The trunk often curves from the base and forms a clump.
The bark is pale grayish brown and smooth.
Young branches are densely hairy.
Leaves are simple and alternate, elliptic to broadly ovate, 5–11 cm long and 3–7 cm wide.
The leaf margins have irregular double serration.
The center of young leaves often has a purplish brown pattern.
There are 8–10 pairs of lateral veins, and the veins are conspicuously raised on the underside of the leaf.
The veins and vein axils on the underside of the leaf are hairy.
The petiole is 0.6–2 cm long, hairy, and sometimes sticky.
There are male and female flowers, which bloom before the leaves unfold.
Male inflorescences form from the previous autumn, 1–4 in the leaf axils, as catkins that lengthen to 3–13 cm at flowering and hang down.
The female flowers gather in heads of 1–4 and open while still enclosed in bud scales, with only the reddish purple stigmas showing.
The fruits grow in clusters of 1–4.
The fruit is a conical nut 1–1.5 cm long, enclosed in a tubular involucre 3–7 cm long.
The involucre extends long like a beak, is green, and is densely covered with bristles on the outside.

[Uses]
The nuts are edible.

[Notes]
The Japanese name comes from the beak-like involucre.

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