Always a treat to see this fascinating plant flowering at this time of year - for this reason it's also known as "Winterbloom"
In the past dowsers used Y-shaped witch hazel sticks as an ancient method for finding underground water. The name witch hazel is believed to have come from the Middle English "wicke" for "lively" -- the dowsing stick bends toward the ground when water is detected below -- and "wych," an old Anglo-Saxon word for "bend."
Thanks for the history lesson of the name...I always wondered where it came from. We actually had a man come to our house to "wych" for water. We dug the shallow well where he told us and got water at 42 feet.
