Byzantine Hazel

Corylus byzantina – Byzantine Hazel

Long confused with its cousin, the Turkish Hazel, the Byzantine Hazel is, however, a distinct species, introduced from Constantinople in the Age of Enlightenment.

Introduced to France by the physician to Kings Louis XV and XVI, this large tree with velvety leaves and silver-gray bark remains largely unknown to botanists. Poiteau provides one of the rare scientific illustrations of his time, bearing witness to the fascination with these oriental species that then enriched royal gardens.

This hazelnut tree is distinguished by its majestic habit, less pyramidal than that of C. colurna, and by its thick, rough-to-the-touch leaves, noticeably hairy on their underside.

Its fruits, enclosed in an involucre with remarkably intricate carvings, ripen from an early age, a peculiarity that Poiteau attributes to the layering propagation practiced in Parisian nurseries.

Native to Greece and Asia Minor, this tree grows rapidly in the French climate and reaches a great height. Its wood, renowned in Constantinople for naval and civil construction, made it a prized species among carpenters. However, in our latitudes, its fruits remain hard and dry, unable to compete with true hazelnuts or Spanish filberts.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalist illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.