Corylus colurna fresh seeds nuts, Turkish hazel, Hazel seeds, Turkish filbert, Bear nut seeds, Tree hazel nut, Organic seeds, Non GMO (lat. Corylus colurna).
Deciduous tree, a species of the genus Hazel (Corylus) of the Birch family (Betulaceae). Unlike most other types of hazel, this species is not a shrub, but a tree up to 20-30 meters tall, living up to 200 years with a thick-shirokopyramidal crown.
The root system is deep, rod-shaped. The tree-like hazel does not give root offspring. Annual shoots are yellowish-gray, with bristly-hairy pubescence. The bark on the trunk and old branches is gray, deeply fractured, separated by plates. The buds are oblong-ovate, with reddish-brown pubescent scales.
The leaves are rounded, dark green, broadly ovate or oval in shape, 7-12 cm long, 5-9 cm wide. Stipules are lanceolate, pointed. The base of the leaf blade is heart-shaped, it is narrowed to the top, short pointed, the leaf edge is double-toothed. Young leaves are pubescent from above, hairy from below mainly along the veins, later they become glabrous. Petioles 1.5-4.5 cm long, glandularly pubescent.
Blooms early in spring, in March-April. Male flowers are collected in cylindrical catkins 6-10 cm long, up to 6 mm thick. Female flowers are hidden in small buds, from under the scales of which only stigmas are exposed during flowering.
Bear nut fruits are single-seeded nuts, collected together in 3-8 pieces. The nut wrapper (pluska) is glandular, wide-open, its leaves are much longer than the nut itself and are repeatedly dissected into linear-lanceolate sharp segments, often sickle-shaped curved. The nuts are small, squeezed from the sides, with a very thick hard shell. Fruiting is not regular, productive years alternate with 2-3 lean ones. Harvest in August-September.
Although the fruits of the bear nut are small and with a very hard shell (it is impossible to crack it with teeth), their kernels are very tasty.