ES Views: Wild London: Hazels bloom with a shower of gold
Golden catkins are blooming across the capital, dangling like clutches of fuzzy yellow caterpillars from the branches of hazel trees. These are male flowers, bringing life to the still leafless trees.
Once commonly known as lambs’ tails, each catkin is up to 8cm long and is loaded with tiny grains of pale yellow pollen, which can be carried great distances by the breeze. Alongside the drooping catkins each hazel also carries tiny, bud-like female flowers, tipped with pink-red tufts resembing exotic sea anemones reaching for prey.
When fertilised by the wind-borne pollen of other hazel trees these flowers grow to produce hazelnuts, the seeds from which new trees can grow.
Hazel once played a vital role in Britain’s pre-industrial economy. Before plastics, petroleum and electricity, our not-so-distant ancestors used wood to shape their world, from the simplest spoon to the mightiest battleship. Hazel was second only to oak in importance, and was coppiced — or cut — every 0 or 12 years to produce sticks and poles known as “smallwood”.
Smallwood, woven in a criss-cross fashion, provided trellises that supported the mud and clay walls of most London buildings until the 17th century. Hazel had many other uses, including fencing and firewood.
Hazelnuts were once eagerly gathered and eaten, but these days most fall victim to grey squirrels and woodpigeons. Few nuts escape, and natural germination of new trees in London is now rare.
Today, hazel is widely planted, partly to make up for the dramatic loss of Britain’s hedgerows, but also to give variety to young woodlands, parks and gardens. Trees can reach 15m in height, but most are coppiced at about three to four metres. This helps to keep the trees long-lived and healthy, and allows light to reach the woodland floor, benefiting woodland flowers.
London Wildlife Trust campaigns to protect the capital’s wildlife and wild spaces. Backed by Sir David Attenborough, President Emeritus of The Wildlife Trusts.
