Common name: Bracken Fern, Austral Bracken Family name: Dennstaedtiaceae Botanical name: Pteridium esculentum Flowering/fruiting season: All year Location: Common in dry and wet sclerophyll forest

Use:

• Food, medicine
• Thin starchy roots (rhizomes) eaten raw or roasted; rhizomes available late summer to autumn (Flood, 1980)
• Bracken roots were gathered as a staple food, roasted and beaten into a paste (Zola & Gott, 1992:37)
• 'Young juicy stems … were rubbed on to relieve the stinging and itching of insect bites.' (Zola & Gott, 1992:56)
• 'Curled tips of young fronds have a nutty flavour and may be eaten.' (Wreck Bay Community & Renwick, 2000:18)

Notes:
Rhizomes of P. esculentum harvested in late summer can be chewed to extract the starch but they must be roasted first to destroy the toxins, (Cherikoff & Isaacs in Stewart & Percival, 1997:29)

Language names:
gurgi : Eora, Sydney (Gott, 1995)

Horticulture :
Suitable for planting near a water feature.
See ferns.

Similar species:

Use code:
ROOT, SHOOT

Photo by Daphne Nash.

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