#64 Hazel by Hannah Whitaker
Meet Hannah Whitaker, Ecological Data Officer at the North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre!
Hannah’s work at NEYEDC focusses on the update to the Ancient Woodland Inventory, which you can read more about here. Hannah has also worked as a volunteer at various nature reserves, surveying birds and managing habitat, and has spent some enjoyable days coppicing Hazel in ancient woodland. She can be contacted via email at hannah.whitaker@neyedc.co.uk.
The red female flowers on Hazel
Hannah’s chosen species is Hazel (Corylus avellana), a shrub or small tree found in woodland, hedgerows and scrub across Yorkshire and throughout Britain. A common and widespread species, Hazel is a distinctive, beautiful and significant part of the natural landscape throughout the year. The golden, drooping clusters of Hazel catkins – the plant’s male flowers – are a welcome early sign of spring, while a closer look will also reveal the more subtly beautiful small red female flowers. The leaves that emerge later in the spring are round, ragged-edged, pointed and rough to the touch; and in winter Hazel can be recognised by its buds, which are green with a reddish tinge and slightly flattened in shape. Walking through a wood in autumn, you might hear a Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) living up to its name by hammering open a hazelnut which it has wedged into a crack in the bark; other species that feed on hazelnuts include the rare Hazel Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) – and humans! Hazel has an important place in the woodland ecosystem and supports a range of wildlife in other ways too. Many species of moth caterpillars feed on its leaves, including the particularly striking Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata); Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) can often be found climbing up its stems; it’s a favourite host of Toothwort (Lathraea squamaria), a non-photosynthetic, parasitic plant found especially in ancient woodland; and the roots, especially towards the end of its life, support Honey Fungus (Armillaria mellea agg.), which plays a major role in breaking down dead wood and cycling nutrients through the ecosystem.
Hazel is a fast-growing ‘pioneer’ species, quick to move into newly-available habitat and take advantage of ecological opportunities. Along with birch and willow, it was among the first species to reach Yorkshire after the retreat of the Ice Age glaciers, and it’s one of the most abundant trees represented in the prehistorical pollen record across England.
Hazel Coppice in Hagg Wood, Dunnington
It’s this ability for rapid, vigorous growth, and its readiness to regrow after being cut back, that makes Hazel such a good species for coppicing. This is a traditional method of woodland management in which trees are repeatedly cut back to a stump, or stool, at ground level every few years; in between the tree regrows new shoots, providing a regular crop of wood. Coppicing extends the lifespan of trees; the coppice stool will grow slowly wider over time, and coppiced Hazels can reach a diameter of 1.8m and live for hundreds of years. In the Middle Ages Hazel was widely coppiced in woods throughout Yorkshire and elsewhere in England; Domesday Book records almost 2% of the land area of the North Riding specifically as coppice-wood, much of which was probably Hazel. The thin, flexible poles of regrown wood had a variety of uses: in fencing and wattle-and-daub building; as faggot-bands, tying up bundles of twigs used for firewood (Hazel is especially good for this because its flexible fibres can be twisted and tied in knots without breaking); as templewands, used to secure the thatch on roofs; to make corves, the baskets used to carry coal to the surface in mines.
The importance of Hazel coppice in the history of Yorkshire’s woods is reflected in the widespread survival of related words in place names across the county. Hazlewood, Hazelshaw Green, Hazelgarth Rigg and many other names include the name of the tree itself. Words for coppicing, often found in the names of old woods, include ‘spring’ (there are more than ninety Spring Woods across Yorkshire), ‘fall’ and ‘hagg’ – for example, the Hagg Wood just near the NEYEDC office in Dunnington, which is an ancient wood dating back to at least the eleventh century.
Traditional coppicing didn’t only benefit humans, however. The frequent cutting back of trees opens up the canopy and lets light down to the woodland floor, encouraging the growth of woodland plants, which in turn is good for the invertebrates that feed on them; progressively coppicing different compartments of a wood year by year, as well as providing a steady supply of wood each year, creates a variety of habitat types and light levels at different stages of regrowth, to suit a range of species. And coppicing also benefits Hazel itself, which tends to do poorly when densely shaded by taller trees. It’s for these reasons that coppicing, having declined following the Industrial Revolution, is now being revived as a method of woodland management for wildlife conservation. Studies have found that coppiced woodland supports a greater abundance and diversity of moths and butterflies than unmanaged woodland, with progressive coppicing of different compartments being especially beneficial. Hazel is now widely coppiced on nature reserves such as Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Upper Park Wood, to help woodland wildlife in the modern world.
Hazelnut
Recording and monitoring
Records of Hazel, along with other botanical records, can be submitted to the BSBI County Recorder for your vice-county, or to us here at NEYEDC.
Further information and acknowledgements
NEYEDC would like to thank Hannah for her time and expertise in helping to create this blog.
References
Butlin, Robin A. (ed.). Historical Atlas of North Yorkshire (2003). Westbury Publishing, Otley. ISBN 1-84103-023-6
Rackham, Oliver. Ancient Woodland: its history, vegetation and uses in England (1980). Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd, London. ISBN 0-7131-2723-6
Conservation Evidence https://www.conservationevidence.com/actions/3939
Forestry England, Hagg Wood: https://www.forestryengland.uk/hagg-wood
Gazetteer of British Place Names https://gazetteer.org.uk/index
Yorkshire Historical Dictionary https://yorkshiredictionary.york.ac.uk/
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Upper Park Wood https://www.ywt.org.uk/nature-reserves/upper-park-wood-nature-reserve