User:DavidAnstiss/Corylus sieboldiana var. mandshurica

'Corylus sieboldiana' var. 'mandshurica' (the Manchurian hazelnut) is a variety of Corylus sieboldiana, a species of hazelnut with its native range stretching from SE. Siberia to N. & Central Japan. It is a small tree or shrub with

Description
7. Corylus mandshurica Maximowicz, Bull. Acad. Imp. Sci. Saint-Pétersbourg. 15: 137. 1856. 毛榛 mao zhen

Corylus rostrata Aiton var. mandshurica (Maximowicz) Regel; C. sieboldiana Blume var. mandshurica (Maximowicz) C. K. Schneider.

Shrubs to 6 m tall; bark gray-brown, fissured. Branchlets pubescent, villous, stipitate glandular, glabrescent. Petiole 1-3 cm, slender, pubescent, villous, stipitate glandular; leaf blade broadly ovate, oblong, or oblong-obovate, 6-12 × 4-9 cm, abaxially pilose especially along veins, adaxially pilose or glabrous, base cordate, margin irregularly and coarsely serrate, lobed above middle, apex mucronate-acuminate or caudate; lateral veins 9 or 10 on each side of midvein. Male inflorescences 2-4 in a cluster; peduncle short; bracts ovate-triangular, densely pubescent. Female flowers 2-4 in a cluster; bracts

forming a tubular sheath, 3-6 cm, densely yellow setose, white pubescent, and stipitate glandular, much constricted above nut and divided into lanceolate lobes at apex. Nut enclosed by bracts, ovoid-globose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., white pubescent. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jul-Sep.

Temperate forests, thickets; 400-2600 m. E Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang (Daxinganling), Henan (Funiu Shan), ?Hubei, Jilin (Changbai Shan), Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Sichuan [Japan, Korea, Russia (Far East)].

The nuts are edible.

The hazel described in previous editions as C. mandshurica is now considered to be a variety of C. sieboldiana, viz.:

var. mandshurica (Maxim. & Rupr.) Schneid. Synonyms C. mandshurica Maxim. & Rupr

A shrub up to 12 or 15 ft high, its largest leaves 5 or 6 in. long and 4 in. wide; ordinarily 3 or 4 in. long, roundish obovate, heart-shaped at the base, pointed, the terminal part doubly toothed or even shallowly lobed; stalk {1/2} to 1 in. long. Nut conical, {1/2} in. long, the husk covered with pale brown bristles as well as down, and drawn out at the apex into a slender beak protruding 1{1/4} to 1{1/2} in. beyond the nut and quite enclosing it. Native of Manchuria and N. China; it was introduced to Kew in 1882 by Dr Bretschneider, and about ten years later by Prof. Sargent. It is quite hardy, and has borne good crops of its remarkable and handsome fruits. These occur in pendent clusters of three or four, the bases touching and the long beaks standing out horizontally. During the summer the husk is prettily suffused with purple. It is closely allied to and may be regarded as the Asiatic representative of C. cornuta, differing chiefly in the more distinctly lobed terminal portion of the leaves, which are also longer stalked, rounder, and broader. C. sieboldiana itself, a native of Japan, has the same bristly hairy husk, but considerably shorter than either, and protruding beyond the nut {3/4} in. only. It came into cultivation in 1904. From Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Biochemistry
Corylus sieboldiana (as documented as its synonym Corylus mandshurica) has been studied for creating Taxol using in vitro hazel cell cultures to produce taxol and taxanes via its transcriptome.

Taxonomy
Corylus sieboldiana var. mandshurica (Maxim.) C.K.Schneid., (also the Manchurian hazelnut, or Manchurian filbert ) which was published in ''Plantae Wilsonianae. An Enumeration of the Woody Plants Collected in Western China for the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University... Cambridge, MA.'' (edited by C.S.Sargent) Vol.2 on page 454 in 1916 and its native range is from SE. Siberia to N. & Central Japan.

Distribution and habitat
C. sieboldiana var. mandshurica is native to temperate area of Asia.

Uses
The nuts of all Corylus species are edible.