Are all of todays significant stands of hazel former coppice?
Literature searches on the ecology of hazel revealed that there was very little written about hazel per se. If hazel is noticed, or mentioned, it is dismissed at best as ‘scrub’, or ‘understorey’, or (the universal favourite) ‘hazel coppice’, and at worst as ‘neglected hazel coppice’. There does appear to be a mind-set in describing Corylus avellana as ‘hazel coppice’. It is true that hazel lends itself admirably to coppicing, and the uses to which hazel has been utilized over the centuries are many and varied. The classic coppice-with-standards practice in lowland southern England is recognized as a form of management that gives rise to herb-rich ground floras, supports high diversity of insects and birds, and as such is elaborately described in glowing terms in all handbooks of ecology and woodland management. Hence, students and woodland managers are swayed into thinking that this is the way in which hazel always has been – and should be – managed, so that all stands of hazel, where
