Hazelnut, filbert, wild filbert, cobnut
aveline (French) noisette (French West Indies), Haselnufs (German), nocciola (Italian), avellana (Spanish), foundoúki (Greek), bunduq (Arabic), avellana (Santo Domingo)
(Corylus sp. – Family Corylaceae)
Hazelnuts and filberts are names generally used synonymously. In North America, the name is reserved for the wild species, but can refer to the cultivated nuts of European origin. In Britain, the term hazelnut can be applied whether the tree is wild or cultivated, while “cob” and “filbert” indicate two sorts of cultivated hazelnut. Hazelnuts are generally plump and grape-sized, with a rich sweet flavour; but the skin is slightly bitter and, therefore, often removed. Cob is a name invented by the British to describe the similar roundish nut partly encased by short husks. Filberts are longer and completely encased by their husks. Filberts used to be classified as C. maxima, but no longer. The name filbert derived from “full beard,” referring to the husks that extend beyond the nut. There are now numerous named varieties of both cobs and filberts. Although the most common commercial variety offered for sale under the name “Kentish Cob,” it is not a cob but a filbert. Cobnuts are generally of the genus Omphalea (Family Betulaceae) found in tropical America, and have a flavour similar to that of hazelnuts. There are three species which play a minor role as food, but O. diandra and O. triandra are cultivated only on a small scale.
Hazelnuts are but one of the hundreds of hybrids developed over thousands of years. There are roughly fifteen main species in the world, scattered across the temperate regions of North America, Europe, northern Africa, and Asia. Hazelnuts flower during the winter, and produce their nuts the following fall. The wild species produce rather small but very sweet nuts, and are a staple food for many forest animals. The hazelnut trees are mostly shrubs that result from the extensive sucker formation, but some can grow to heights of 120 feet. All of them bear edible nuts, although only two or three species are of any real importance. Two hazelnuts native to the eastern US are C. americana and C. rostrata. A form of the latter, californica, grows on the west coast from California to the Hudson Bay region of Canada. However, they are not very useful for commercial purposes although C. americana has been hybridized with commercial varieties to some extent.
