Common hornbeam
Carpinus betulus
A medium-sized deciduous tree with smooth grey bark that is shallowly fluted, so the trunk looks sinewy rather than round. The leaves are oval and sharply toothed, with straight, deeply impressed parallel veins, and the fruit hangs in drooping clusters of small ribbed nutlets, each seated on a three-lobed papery bract. Young spring leaves are mild and edible raw or cooked; the nutlets are edible but small and slow to shell.
Native to south-east England, mostly on heavy clay and chalk in oak woodland and old coppice, and widely planted across Britain and Ireland as a street tree, park tree and clipped hedge. Shade-tolerant and content on damp, poorly drained ground.
No recorded toxicity, and no preparation is required for young leaves, though older summer leaves turn tough and bitter and the nutlets are hard enough to be more work than food. Avoid clipped hedges and roadside trees, which may be sprayed or traffic-soiled, and pick only with the landowner's permission; uprooting a wild plant without it is an offence.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Bark and trunk shape
Smooth, pale grey and marked with shallow vertical flutes and ridges, so the bole looks twisted and muscular. Beech, which grows on the same ground and has similarly smooth grey bark, keeps an evenly cylindrical trunk.
Leaves
Oval, 4–10cm, with a drawn-out tip, a doubly toothed margin and roughly 10–15 pairs of straight, deeply impressed veins that give the blade a pleated feel. Beech leaves are wavy-edged rather than toothed, and glossier.
Fruit clusters
Small ribbed nutlets, each sitting at the base of a three-lobed leafy wing, strung along a hanging cluster 5–10cm long from late summer. Nothing else in a British hedge carries fruit in this shape; hazel nuts sit singly or in twos in a ragged green cup.
Buds and twigs
Buds 5–10mm, slender and lying close along the twig at a shallow angle. Beech buds are longer, up to 2cm, sharply pointed and held out from the shoot — the quickest winter test on a leafless hedge.
Updated 2026-08-07T20:37:48.319Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Fruit