The Female Flowers of Hazel

Despite being at Barnsley House for quite a while and a gardener, before this for quite a while longer; it’s only since I left my post of Head Gardener that I have seen something totally new to me at Barnsley House. 

My basic botany is 'ok' and I know that some plants are monoecious i.e. male and female flowers on the same plant; but from a visual point of view we seem to focus on the more elaborate flower no matter the sex. 

At this time of the year we’re cooing over the catkins on the hedgerow Hazels, the pastel yellow male pollen factories that vape pollen when the time is right and the breeze strong enough. Female flowers?...I’d never given it a second thought until Jen’ pointed them out on Friday, it was a revelation and prompted my curiosity. 

Tiny cherry pink female flowers await the clouds of pollen, this bright; but absolutely miniscule piece of anatomy is the style, the platform pollen lands on that subsequently grows a tube down to the ovary where fertilisation and the mix of DNA occurs producing the nut. It has to be pollen from another Hazel tree for fertilisation to occur, this guarantees a greater mix of genes, wind being the vector and not bees. Hazel pollen is so smooth, almost repelling itself making it difficult for bees to collect.  

The picture below is not good quality; but one I took on the 1^st of March and shows the olive coloured, bud like female flower with it’s bright style (not petals).