Hazel catkins

 Last March I wrote about finding hazel catkins (here).  These yellow danglies are the male part, producing pollen, but the pollen grains have to land on a female part if they want to produce seed (or in this case, hazelnuts).  I did not notice the female structures last year, but told myself I would look more carefully this year.  So I went up Strone again today.  It was a beautiful still, cold but sunny day with snow on the hills.

I was reminded to look out for the little red structures after seeing a video by Leif Bersweden here. I came across Leif when he gave a talk on how to improve your phone photos of plants, and he is a man of many talents. He posts regularly on Twitter (@leifbersweden), has just released a book called "Where the Wildflowers Grow" and has been trying to educate us on how to identify ten common mosses with #couchto10mosses.  I've not got far yet but maybe mosses will be another post in the not too distant future.  There are certainly plenty to find locally.

To get back to the Hazel... Here is one of those miniscule little red flowers.

To get a sense of scale, here is another photo with a catkin and a hand.

And a closer look

The little red strands (stigmas) are sticky to catch the pollen which is carried by the wind from the catkins. Once they have caught the pollen, they turn black and the pollen burrows down to the base of the stigma and waits for a few months until an ovary has grown which it can then fertilise. The process was new to me but it was explained in these research papers:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266867884_Hazelnuts_in_Ontario_-_Biology_and_Potential_Varieties#pf3

https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9074/html

 So there is a lot more to a hazelnut than I thought!