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Saturday - January 30, 2010

From: Delray Beach, FL
Region: Southeast
Topic: Trees
Title: Can hazelnut trees grow in South Florida?
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Can Hazelnut trees grow in South Florida?

ANSWER:

There are three hazelnut trees native to North America: Corylus americana (American hazelnut), Corylus cornuta (beaked hazelnut) and Corylus cornuta var. californica (California hazelnut). None of these is native to Florida. We found an article from Gardening Central The Ups and Downs of Growing Hazelnut Trees saying that, while hazelnuts (or filberts) would grow pretty much anywhere in the country, they tended not to fruit, or produce nuts, in the hotter portion of the South. The same article mentioned a non-native hazelnut that does appear to grow in the warm South, but since we deal only in plants native to North America we have no information on that.