🌰 Hazelnut Corylus avellana
This is a guide, not a substitute for expert identification. Foraging guides - including this one - can contain errors. If you are not completely certain of an identification, do not eat it. Cross-check against at least two independent sources, and when in doubt, consult a local foraging expert or an experienced forager in person before eating anything wild.
A small native woodland and hedgerow tree producing clusters of edible nuts each autumn, traditionally coppiced across the UK and a reliable, low-risk foraging target.
Identification
Hazel is a multi-stemmed shrub or small tree, commonly coppiced, with smooth grey-brown bark that peels with age. Leaves are round to oval, pointed at the tip, softly hairy (downy) on the underside, with a doubly-toothed edge. In late winter, before the leaves appear, hazel produces long yellow male catkins ('lambs' tails') hanging in clusters, while the tiny red female flowers are bud-like and easy to miss. The nuts develop in clusters of one to five, each a roughly spherical, hard-shelled nut about 15-20mm across, held in a short, leafy, ragged-edged husk; nuts start green and ripen to yellow-brown, dropping or coming loose from the husk when ready.
⚠️ Dangerous look-alikes - read this before picking anything
Hazelnut carries low true poisoning risk in the UK - there is no toxic tree nut commonly mistaken for hazel in British hedgerows and woodland. The practical cautions are about nut quality rather than toxic confusion: nuts picked too early (still green and soft) are unripe and not worth eating; nuts that are visibly mouldy, discoloured, unusually light (hollow, from grub damage - hazelnut weevil larvae are common) or that smell musty or rancid should be discarded, as with any stored nut, mould (aflatoxin-producing species in particular) is a genuine health concern on improperly dried or stored nuts generally. I found no credible source describing a poisonous look-alike nut that could be confused with hazelnut in situ on the tree; treat that absence as verified rather than assumed.
UK habitat
Hazel is native and common throughout the UK. It grows in woodland (often as understorey and historically managed by coppicing), scrub, and hedgerows, tolerating a wide range of soil types and light conditions from full shade to open hedgerow sun.
Legal notes
Not protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 Schedule 8 - hazel is a common, unprotected native tree. Picking nuts (fruit) for personal use from wild-growing plants is not theft under Theft Act 1968 s4(3), provided it is not for commercial sale or reward. This covers fruit only, not uprooting the tree or cutting branches without permission. See the full UK foraging law guide for the general rules.