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

Bracken Fern
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