You will not find the Hazel difficult to recognise at any time of year. Before the month of January is over you will notice a pair of long brown caterpillars dangling in the wind from many of the Hazel twigs: lamb’s tails, the country children call them, but their correct name is Hazel catkins; and like those of the Birch tree, they have been hanging on the tree all winter, but were so small that you did not notice them. In summer, if you look carefully, you find many tiny green stamen catkins growing between the foot of the leaf stalk and the branch. These green cones grow very, very slowly all autumn and winter, and when January is nearly over they change into these dangling tails or hanging catkins (3), and their tightly-folded scales begin to unclose. Behind these scales lie eight stamens, each of which has a bright yellow head. These yellow heads are filled with fine powder, and when ripe they burst, and the fine powder is shaken out by the wind. Soon after, the catkin turns brown and shrivelled, and before very long it falls off; its work for the year is over. When the snowdrops bloom, in the end of January, the other Hazel flowers or seed catkins are ready. They are not easily seen, so you must look for them carefully. On each side of the stalk you will find a small scale-covered bud (4), and at the tip of this bud rises a tuft of crimson threads. Inside this scale-covered bud are the seeds, and from the top of each seed rise two crimson threads. On windy days the fine powder from the yellow stamen heads is shaken over these crimson threads, which carry it to the young seeds hidden beneath the scaly covering. As spring advances this crimson tuft disappears and the bud busies itself making the seed, which must be ready by autumn. The covering of the seed hardens like a nut: at first this nut is pale green, but in winter it becomes a glossy russet brown. Inside this nut (5) lies the kernel of the seed, and it is this sweet kernel which is the fruit we eat. Meantime the scaly leaves, which formed the covering of the young bud, have grown much larger: they have become tough and leathery, and their ends are deeply divided, as if they were torn. In the Filbert Hazel, which is a cousin of the common Hazel and very like it, these leathery coverings conceal the nut. But in the common or Cobnut Hazel they form a cup in which the nut sits in the same way as the acorn does in its cup.