A tree of the hedgerow. The hazelnut was brought to New Zealand by early European settlers, planted in gardens and orchards. Now it grows wild in old gardens, along hedgerows, in waste places, a multi-stemmed shrub or small tree in the landscape. The hazelnut is often multi-stemmed, growing as a shrub rather than a single-trunked tree, reaching up to eight metres in height. The leaves are rounded, toothed, and soft to the touch. The flowers are the story – the male catkins are long and yellow, hanging from the branches in winter; the female flowers are tiny and red, hidden in the buds. The fruit is the prize – the hazelnut, sweet and rich, the taste of autumn. In New Zealand, hazelnuts have escaped from cultivation. They grow wild in old gardens, along hedgerows, in the corners of old farms. These wild trees are living history, preserving varieties that are no longer grown commercially. A gnarled old hazelnut shrub in an abandoned orchard might be seventy years old, its nuts still sweet, its catkins still yellow. The wood of the hazelnut is flexible and strong. The young stems (withies) were used for making hurdles, baskets, and thatching spars. The wood was used for walking sticks and tool handles. The hazelnut was a tree of utility, a tree of the hedgerow, a tree of the farmstead. To see an old hazelnut in flower is to see a piece of history. The settlers who planted it are gone, but the shrub remains. It produces catkins every winter, nuts every autumn, drops its leaves every winter. It does not know that it is a stranger here. It just grows, and fruits, and feeds the birds. The hazelnut is not a native. It is not endemic. It is an immigrant, a settler, a shrub that made a new home in a new land. It has been here for two hundred years. It will be here as long as the hedgerows remain.