Hornbeam catkins

At the moment it's easy to pick out the hornbeams, as they are all sporting dangly lime-green catkins, now quite as showy as the hazel catkins at the start of the year, but still a splendid sight. Like hazel, there are separate male and female flowers, borne on the same tree. The female is quite undertstated - a bunch of soft pink stigmas on the left side of the branch. Eventually these will develop into papery green fruits known as samaras.

Hornbeam timber is a pale creamy white with a flecked grain. It is extremely hard and strong, and so is mainly used for furniture and flooring. Traditional used for the wood included ox-yokes (a wooden beam fitted across the shoulders of an ox to enable it to pull a cart), butchers' chopping blocks and cogs for windmills and water mills. It was also coppiced and pollarded for poles.  It also burns well and makes good firewood and charcoal.

It's a native species, characteristically found in woodlands on somewhat acid soil in the south and east of England. However, because of its attractive appearance and useful wood, it's widely planted and is present in many formal parklands and amenity woodlands.