Nut cluster

There is a hazel nut tree in the street just outside my driveway. Usually the squirrels deal with the produce but this year the pavement is strewn with nuts.

Eager up to find out if they are indeed hazel nuts or some other variety, I took to the Internet.

This explanation below comes from this website

Before you read on, I want you to know that I shall delight in eating the squirrel's food rather than it destroying my garden.

Revenge, like a cobnut, is sweet!

"To begin with, there are between 14-18 species in the Corylus genus, depending on the botanist. All of the Corylus species are technically in the Corylaceae Family which many modern botanists are calling the Hazel family. Therefore all Corylus species produce “hazelnuts” in a general term.

The name “hazel” likely comes from the Anglo-Saxon word haesel which means bonnet or head-dress. This describes the shape of the shell surrounding the nut. It is unlikely describing the color of the nut.

Many hundreds of years ago, the hazel species in Britain were given the common name “filbert”. Species that were discovered by British botanists in later years were often given the common name filbert if they were a shrub and hazel if they were a tree.

So where did the name “filbert” come from? There are two possible reasons for this name. The first is that the nuts mature around 22 August, a.k.a. St. Philibert’s Day (Saint Philibert of Jumieges was a French monk). The second reason is that the husked shell of a hazelnut resembles a beard, and the German word for “full beard” is vollbart. Over time, with English influences, this word may have became “filbert”. However, no one is really sure which the real origin of the name is.

With all that said, any Corylus species that have the common name “filbert” (i.e. European Filberts, Common Filbert, etc.) produce filberts, but they technically are all hazelnuts.


Now to further confuse the issue, some varieties of hazels grown in Britain are called “cobnuts”. This was based on a game kids used to play with the nuts where the winning nut was called the cob. Most cobnuts are cultivars of a variety named Kentish Cob. Cobnuts are also unique in that they are typically sold fresh, not dried. This gives the nuts a seasonal market and unique culinary uses"