by Michael Madison

inding hazel today is a challenge, though the American hazelnut (Corylus americana) was the single most prominent shrub in the region before European settlement, according to Marlin Bowles, plant conservation ecologist at the Morton Arboretum. This region’s natural open savannas, nourished in the past by frequent fires lit by local natives, provided an ideal habitat for hazel, which requires a lot of light to thrive. The fire suppression that accompanied European settlement, by encouraging overgrowth by brush, has fundamentally altered the composition of open-canopied savanna throughout the Midwest, and the American hazelnut has lost its sweet Chicago home.

Hazel shrubs are leafy, small-branched plants that grow approximately three to five feet tall in open-canopied environments. Hazel flowers early, showing golden blossoms in late March. In addition to reproducing through their nutrient-rich nuts — highly sought commodities in the world of woodland squirrels and blue jays — the American hazelnut spreads by root sprouts. Reproduction through root sprouts ensures that healthy hazels are generally found in colonies, rarely as single bushes standing alone. Sprouts fortunate enough to find themselves in an area receiving intense sun exposure can reach heights of up to ten feet. Excellent specimens of this size are quite rare today.

Hazel bushes thrive in open environments because of increased light exposure, but they generally do not establish themselves in prairies because of competition from the grasses. Hazels will thrive principally on forest borders and in savanna environments, of which the vast majority have disappeared from our region.

Recently, hazel has become the focus of interest of many area botanists and restorationists, who strive to revive the ecological diversity that once characterized the Chicago area. In their efforts to nurse our natural areas back to health, restorationists must rely on early descriptions of the region to decide which seeds to plant at restoration sites. Descriptions from the first Chicago area Public Land Survey, conducted in the early 1800s by the United States government, show that hazel was the most abundant shrub here. So the American hazelnut, overlooked and abused for more than a century, but duly noted in early documentary literature, has begun a comeback of sorts. Hazel restorations have been underway since the early ‘90s at Fermilab, the Morton Arboretum, and Hickory Creek Barrens among other sites. The news is good. Hazel has, as predicted, established a foothold under savanna canopies around the region.

Even successful restorations have been hard fought. Newly planted hazelnuts are magnets for hungry woodland mammals, and many are devoured before they can grow. Indeed, it is difficult even to find nuts to plant, so thorough are animals in their collecting practices. Another obstacle is that fires kill hazel seedlings, but are necessary for the maintenance of the open-canopy habitat that is certainly essential. As a result of this fragility, restorationists must delay burns of areas where hazel has been introduced until the shrubs have reached a maturity that allows for regeneration after fire.

Hazel, not surprisingly in face of its ubiquity, has a place in American folklore. Folklore of Trees and Shrubs by Laura C. Martin reports that both Europeans and Native Americans believed that hairs from the twigs of the species were "thought to expel worms." Various Native American tribes used hazel in medicines. Hazel bark was used both in brewing tea to treat hives and fevers, and as an ingredient in a poultice for cuts and sores.

Will American hazelnut shrubs become abundant in the region once again? Most likely, not anytime soon. However, hazel’s darkest day is almost certainly behind us. As open savanna restoration projects grow more and more established with every passing year, the prospects for the long overdue return of one of this region’s rightful inheritors grows stronger.

For more information on the American hazelnut, see Marlin Bowles’ and Michael Spravka’s "American Hazelnut: An Overlooked Shrub in Northeastern Illinois" in the Autumn 1994 issue of The Morton Arboretum Quarterly.