Photo: Natacha Frachon — CC BY 3.0 · source
Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
A Himalayan mountain-forest hazel whose small, thick-shelled nuts are held in a husk armed with dense, many-angled spines — a trait unique among hazels — ripening from red to whitish in clusters of 4–6.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Tree
- Edible part
- Nut
- Ripens
- September
- Mature size
- Tree 6–15 m
- Light
- Partial to full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.5 (lime-tolerant)
- Environment
- Montane
- Native range
- Himalayan mountain forests from central Nepal through Bhutan, northeastern India, northern Myanmar, and into southwest China, at elevations up to 3,800 m.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 3–4 yrs
- Growth speed
- Moderate
- Spacing
- 500 cm (197 in) apart — about 25 m² (269 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Ovate to oblong or obovate, 5–15 cm, obliquely rounded base, long-pointed tip, doubly toothed margin; downy along the veins when young with a reddish flush.
- Root system
- Produces root suckers used for propagation, indicating a suckering root habit typical of multi-stemmed hazels.
- Fruit description
- Small nuts (10–15 mm wide), thick-shelled, borne 4–6 in a cluster; the densely hairy husk is tipped with numerous spines angled in all directions, ripening from red to whitish, with kernel flavor similar to the common filbert.
- Propagation
- Seed sown fresh in autumn in a cold frame; stored seed needs a 48-hour warm-water soak, then two weeks warm and three to four months cold stratification. Also propagated by autumn layering and by division of root suckers planted directly to their permanent position in early spring.
- Pollination
- SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — hazels need a compatible pollinizer (plant 2–3 cultivars)
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Succeeds in sandy, loamy or clay soils across mildly acid to alkaline pH; sets seed best on moderate-fertility ground — both very rich and very poor soils reduce nut production.
How it spreads. A multi-stemmed tree or large shrub that produces root suckers, so it can slowly colonize outward from the base rather than staying strictly single-trunked.
Growing tips. Its spiny husk — unique among cultivated hazels — makes hand-harvesting trickier than smooth-husked species. Cultivated plants stay much smaller than the wild 20 m form; the tallest recorded garden specimen is only about 7 m. Nuts should be protected from squirrels.
Grow journal
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