Corylus maxima
Corylus maxima, the filbert, is a species of hazel in the birch family. It is native to Eurasia and produces an edible nut.
Description
It is a deciduous shrub tall, with stems up to thick. The leaves are rounded, long by broad, with a coarsely double-serrated margin.The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins produced in late winter. The male catkins are pale yellow, long, while the female catkins are bright red and only long. The fruit is a nut produced in clusters of 1–5 together. Each nut is long, fully enclosed in a long, tubular involucre.
Similar species
The filbert is similar to the related common hazel, C. avellana, differing in having the nut more fully enclosed by the tubular involucre. This feature is shared by the beaked hazel C. cornuta of North America, and the Asian beaked hazel C. sieboldiana of eastern Asia.Distribution and habitat
The species is native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, from the Balkans to Ordu in Turkey.Uses
The filbert nut is edible and is very similar to the hazelnut. Its main use in the United States is as large filler in most containers of mixed nuts. Filberts are sometimes grown in orchards for the nuts, but much less often than the common hazel.The purple-leaved cultivar C. maxima 'Purpurea' is a popular ornamental shrub in gardens.
Name
In Oregon, "filbert" is used for commercial hazelnuts in general. Use in this manner has faded partly due to the efforts of Oregon's hazelnut growers to brand their product to better appeal to global markets and avoid confusion.The etymology for 'filbert' may trace to Norman French. Saint Philibert's feast day is 20 August and the plant was possibly renamed after him because the nuts were mature on this day.