Bracken Fern, Austral Bracken
Common in dry and wet sclerophyll forest
- 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)
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)
gurgi : Eora, Sydney (Gott, 1995)
Suitable for planting near a water feature.
Photo by Daphne Nash.
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