ALTHOUGH in the vast majority of cases the male and female flowers of the hazel, as stated by Mr. Bennett in NATURE, vol. xi. p. 466, mature simultaneously on the same bush, with, I think, rather some tendency to begin the shedding of pollen before the expansion of the neighbouring stigmas ; yet I have seen very striking exceptions to this rule, in the same sense as have been formerly recorded in NATURE. Thus, on March 5, 1874, I was astonished to find in a neighbouring copse a row of hazel bushes with beautifully expanded stigmas, their male catkins being still in a very undeveloped condition, and other bushes, very near those, had long lost their stigmas—the buds unfolding—while the male flowers were still shedding their pollen. Probably this exceptional “proterogyny” of the hazel is peculiar to individual bushes, and it is to be desired that such bushes may be observed in succeeding years.