The hazel Corylus avellana is a monoecious tree with male flowers on hanging catkins and tiny female bud-like flowers with red stigmas. The hazel does not rely on insects for pollination so hazel flowers appear long before insects begin to emerge. Instead, the hazel relies on the wind and its flowers are designed accordingly. Catkin is derived from the Dutch word katteken, which means kitten, since the flowers look like fluffy kitten tails.
Alex Hyde is one of Britain’s leading exponents of close-up nature photography. His award-winning images portray a hidden world of extraordinary beauty. “To this day I delight in revealing tiny details of subjects that would be missed by the naked eye. Many of my pictures involve photographing moving subjects smaller than a grain of rice. Nature provides me with an endless array of fascinating subjects.”
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