beaked hazelnut

Corylus cornuta · Betulaceae · all Corylus records · Wikipedia

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Yes, beaked hazelnut is rated fire resistant, although one approving program says it needs more research.

Four programs recommend the shrub. FireSmart BC calls it a FireSmart-approved fire-resistant plant but flags it for further study. Colorado State University Extension gives it an ignitability score of 8 out of 10, which meets that source’s threshold for plants used in defensible-space zones 1 and 2. This is the clearest numerical support for the favorable verdict.

Fremont County Firewise includes beaked hazelnut among its Firewise large shrubs and trees. That program describes its listed plants as generally low-growing, low-debris and relatively moist. NFPA Firewise Communities also includes the species among fire-resistive plants suitable for landscaping in the Black Hills. These are compiled recommendations rather than results from one shared testing method, but they point in the same direction across British Columbia, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Beaked hazelnut is a high-water shrub that reaches about 15 feet at maturity. The sound reading is that it is a fire-resistant landscaping choice, not that it cannot burn. The research flag and varied methods leave room for caution, but the published recommendations consistently favor it.

Form: shrub
Mature height: ~15 ft
Water need: high
Rated in: Black Hills, South Dakota; British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming +1

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Black Hills, South Dakota; British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; eastern US
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
- CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01
  Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills · Official scoped edition
- Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage
  The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.
Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
- Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25
  The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AL, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, IA, ID, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, ID, IL, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 2a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

33

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

33 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
California (CA)
Colorado (CO)
Connecticut (CT)
Georgia (GA)
Iowa (IA)
Idaho (ID)
Illinois (IL)
Kentucky (KY)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Montana (MT)
North Carolina (NC)
North Dakota (ND)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Oregon (OR)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
South Dakota (SD)
Tennessee (TN)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Washington (WA)
Wisconsin (WI)
West Virginia (WV)
Wyoming (WY)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record corylus-cornuta · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Corylus cornuta · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record COCO6 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 2a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -47°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Corylus cornuta · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 70081, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills: Large shrubs & trees [black-hills-plant-form-table] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Listed without a rating (1)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“13”

Native shrub in upperelevations that will provide filberts for wildlife and eating.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Corylus cornuta (Beaked hazelnut). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/corylus-cornuta/. Last verified 2026-08-23.