March 9, 2009
American Hazelnut Flowers, Corylus Americana
One of the joys of early spring for botanists in New England is the emergence of the female flowers of the American Hazelnut. Although tiny compared with the male catkins (left photo), they are intensely purplish-red. In a few weeks the male flowers will shed their pollen, and later in the summer the nuts will form where the female flowers were.
These shrubs were growing in the planting beds along the perimeter Road overlooking the Kingsley Park bioswale.