Bracken rhizomes

[Toddy]

i remember reading somewhere that pteridium aquilinum can be found on every continent except Antarctica... wouldn't be the first time, though that a plant or animal has been given a name which has nothing to to with it(f.i. the local name for opossum means "bald fox" in english even though it's no fox @all) or the same name means different things in different languages(f.i. "tuna": in english the fish you buy in cans, in spanish ==prickly pear" in Maori == eel)

I find myself intrigued, because I live with the stuff, it's literally at my back door, yet I have never seen anything that appears to be edible about it.
I have cut down literal tons of the stuff, we used it for flooring inside the roundhouse on the crannog on Loch Tay. I have dug up dozens of the plants, and they don't come again except from the liverwort which grows from the spores.
So, when folks talk about eating rhizomes, I'm wondering what on earth they're talking about.

M

 

[forrestdweller]

hhmm... now i'm getting a bit confused, too...
as said earlier: i've eaten the pickled fiddle heads in south korea, but i never tried the rhizomes for various reasons.
there's over 300 species of terms in New Zealand,but only a handful were utilised as food sources by the Maori , including bracken fern (i'm sure the stuff i saw was bracken fern), apparently they used to burn small patches of forest to encourage new growth. it was however only consumed in the southern part of the South Island where the climate was too cold for kumara (sweet potato) --the only polynesian crop capable of surviving in the colder climate of New Zealand (which is too cold for taro and coconut palm) -- but they stopped eating them as soon as they got "real" potatoes. means it was more of a "starvation food"... it's possible that early euroopean settlers got mixed up between fern species but given it's worldwide habitation they should have been familiar with the plant...

unfortunately it's almost ten years since my last trip to the " land of the long white cloud" so i'm quoting my own memory here... my copy of Andrew Crowe's "field guide to native edible plants of New Zealand " is currently stored at a friend's place, if the termites haven't eaten it by now i'll check what it says on this subject next time i'm on his place in the jungle (y)

 

[Suffolkrafter]

I have cut down literal tons of the stuff, we used it for flooring inside the roundhouse on the crannog on Loch Tay. I have dug up dozens of the plants, and they don't come again except from the liverwort which grows from the spores.
So, when folks talk about eating rhizomes, I'm wondering what on earth they're talking about.

Now that is interesting. I'm sure I've read that the young plants reproduce through spores, and it's only the old plants that reproduce by rhizome. So perhaps if you have been frequently cutting back plants they just don't get to the stage of producing rhizomes? This is pure conjecture on my part.

 

[Toddy]

The last one I dug out (early this Summer) had been growing for at least five years....pretty sure on that because I shifted the slabs it was growing next to six years ago, and it wasn't there when I did so.....but grew thereafter and looked rather nice at the end of the path so I just left it.

How old do they need to be to produce edible rhizomes ?
The root ball thingie on that one was 40cms across and about 25 deep.
It's now growing over the fence alongside the burn path.

No new shoots have appeared anywhere around where the old plant was dug up.

I think we need photos of these rhizomes, and of the production process to make them into food.

I have at least two other big ones that 'could' come up. One is huge and growing under my apple tree. It's been there for at least ten years.

 

[Spirit fish]

i remember reading somewhere that pteridium aquilinum can be found on every continent except Antarctica... wouldn't be the first time, though that a plant or animal has been given a name which has nothing to to with it(f.i. the local name for opossum means "bald fox" in english even though it's no fox @all) or the same name means different things in different languages(f.i. "tuna": in english the fish you buy in cans, in spanish ==prickly pear" in Maori == eel)

it's the same plant the natives in America used to the bracke n in the UK the scientific name is exactly the same and the plant looks exactly the same it was in ethnobotanical research

 

[Spirit fish]

The last one I dug out (early this Summer) had been growing for at least five years....pretty sure on that because I shifted the slabs it was growing next to six years ago, and it wasn't there when I did so.....but grew thereafter and looked rather nice at the end of the path so I just left it.

How old do they need to be to produce edible rhizomes ?
The root ball thingie on that one was 40cms across and about 25 deep.
It's now growing over the fence alongside the burn path.

No new shoots have appeared anywhere around where the old plant was dug up.

I think we need photos of these rhizomes, and of the production process to make them into food.

I have at least two other big ones that 'could' come up. One is huge and growing under my apple tree. It's been there for at least ten years.

that's unusual because in the woods near me if u dig roughly a foot down your reach the black rhizomes and you can if your willing to dig follow them quite a distance mature plants don't form root balls they grow out sideways from the base sometimes winding sometimes straight some can be 100metres long when I become a full member il upload pics

 

[Toddy]

I would genuinely love to see those photos
Mine dig up in big clumps of the hairy knobbly root mass. They dig out clean and never come back. They do seed/spore, and I have been working in the garden today and there are several places where I reckon I can get a decent photo of the liverwork stage just as it starts to produce the fern.

I'm not getting at anyone about this; I am genuinely curious. I forage all year long, and honestly had never thought to try to see what the 'rhizome' of the bracken actually was. I thought it was some weird other species they ate in NZ.

 

[Broch]

I've had a quick look:

From the Native American Ethnobotany Database; food uses of the rhizomes of Pteridium aquilinum

Bella Coola – roasted
Clallam – roasted
Hahwunkwut – cooked in ground oven
Hesquiat – mashed, boiled or steamed
Kwakiutl – roasted, beaten
Montana – peeled and roasted
Nitinaht – roasted, pounded, inner eaten

 

[slowworm]

I would genuinely love to see those photos

I was trying to find a photo and this PDF came up which shows what bracken rhizomes/roots are like. https://historicengland.org.uk/cont...the-palaeoethnobotany-of-pteridium-aquilinum/

I'm currently trying to dig it out of our veg bed and plant trees in areas where bracken is covering the soil and it has thick, black, fleshy roots/rhizomes that need a good spade to cut through. They can be pulled up but braken here will regrow each year from the roots/rhizomes so it's a multi-year task.

 

[Suffolkrafter]

I've spent a few precious minutes (family allows me little more than this...) Googlizing thiaminase. This is in no way intended to contradict anyone elses knowledge or ideas in any way - purely I think it is interesting.
Thiamimase causes vitamin b1 deficiency, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and can wreak havoc on various livestock who feed on bracken and other ferns. Apparently a plant in Australia called naradoo contains particularly high levels of it (more so than bracken) and has led to the deaths of many sheep over the years. However aboriginal folk were able to eat the fern by preparing it properly, namely through heat.
However, there are many different thiaminases, not all of which are denatured by heat, and as for bracken, what I read suggested that no one knows how it responds to heat. However it is found in highest concentrations in the rhizomes! There's tonnes of information on the internet, including many scientific papers, well worth a read I'd have thought.

 

[Toddy]

I was trying to find a photo and this PDF came up which shows what bracken rhizomes/roots are like. https://historicengland.org.uk/cont...the-palaeoethnobotany-of-pteridium-aquilinum/

I'm currently trying to dig it out of our veg bed and plant trees in areas where bracken is covering the soil and it has thick, black, fleshy roots/rhizomes that need a good spade to cut through. They can be pulled up but braken here will regrow each year from the roots/rhizomes so it's a multi-year task.

Excellent Thank you

I have nothing like that in my garden, and we've dug out a lot of plants of it over the years. They just get too big, and there are always the liverwort ones that I normally just weed out, to grow on to fill the space.

My garden is heavy blue clay at it's base. I compost every scrap of organic material that I can to open up the clay and create a decent top soil.
I wonder if the clay is just too much for it ?

I think too that I would have to be incredibly hungry to think about digging up those roots for food though.

 

[Spirit fish]

I would genuinely love to see those photos
Mine dig up in big clumps of the hairy knobbly root mass. They dig out clean and never come back. They do seed/spore, and I have been working in the garden today and there are several places where I reckon I can get a decent photo of the liverwork stage just as it starts to produce the fern.

I'm not getting at anyone about this; I am genuinely curious. I forage all year long, and honestly had never thought to try to see what the 'rhizome' of the bracken actually was. I thought it was some weird other species they ate in NZ.

The fern has many uses the natives in America used the juice from the plants as deodorant aswell ,it's a interesting group of plants here since dinosaur times

 

[forrestdweller]

I've spent a few precious minutes (family allows me little more than this...) Googlizing thiaminase. This is in no way intended to contradict anyone elses knowledge or ideas in any way - purely I think it is interesting.
Thiamimase causes vitamin b1 deficiency, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and can wreak havoc on various livestock who feed on bracken and other ferns. Apparently a plant in Australia called naradoo contains particularly high levels of it (more so than bracken) and has led to the deaths of many sheep over the years. However aboriginal folk were able to eat the fern by preparing it properly, namely through heat.
However, there are many different thiaminases, not all of which are denatured by heat, and as for bracken, what I read suggested that no one knows how it responds to heat. However it is found in highest concentrations in the rhizomes! There's tonnes of information on the internet, including many scientific papers, well worth a read I'd have thought.

i remember reading or hearing somewhere (might been in a "Bush Tucker Man" episode but i'm not sure) that consuming nardoo (possibly improperly prepared or in too high amounts) led to the death of several members of the Burke&Wills expedition...

 

[Spirit fish]

I've spent a few precious minutes (family allows me little more than this...) Googlizing thiaminase. This is in no way intended to contradict anyone elses knowledge or ideas in any way - purely I think it is interesting.
Thiamimase causes vitamin b1 deficiency, as I mentioned in an earlier post, and can wreak havoc on various livestock who feed on bracken and other ferns. Apparently a plant in Australia called naradoo contains particularly high levels of it (more so than bracken) and has led to the deaths of many sheep over the years. However aboriginal folk were able to eat the fern by preparing it properly, namely through heat.
However, there are many different thiaminases, not all of which are denatured by heat, and as for bracken, what I read suggested that no one knows how it responds to heat. However it is found in highest concentrations in the rhizomes! There's tonnes of information on the internet, including many scientific papers, well worth a read

i remember reading or hearing somewhere (might been in a "Bush Tucker Man" episode but i'm not sure) that consuming nardoo (possibly improperly prepared or in too high amounts) led to the death of several members of the Burke&Wills expedition...

iv eaten bracken rhizhomes with no Ill effects as a experiment ,to me there a famine food

 

[Toddy]

Thing is though, famine foods actually only work if you gain more calories from them than you expend extracting them......trust me on this, I was an archaeologist, I did a lot of digging......and I've gardened on Lanarkshire's heavy blue clay soils for over fifty years.......digging a foot down here is damned hard work, especially if you have to expose a lot of ground a foot down to obtain rhizomes.

Maybe on sand, it might be easy on sand. Madder roots and liquorice roots are easy on sandy soil, but blooming hard work on clay.

M

 

[Spirit fish]

Thing is though, famine foods actually only work if you gain more calories from them than you expend extracting them......trust me on this, I was an archaeologist, I did a lot of digging......and I've gardened on Lanarkshire's heavy blue clay soils for over fifty years.......digging a foot down here is damned hard work, especially if you have to expose a lot of ground a foot down to obtain rhizomes.

Maybe on sand, it might be easy on sand. Madder roots and liquorice roots are easy on sandy soil, but blooming hard work on clay.

M

Nothing is worth digging up in clay soils even Burdock roots don't grow impressive roots in hard clay soils it's all about locality tbh

 

[Spirit fish]

Thing is though, famine foods actually only work if you gain more calories from them than you expend extracting them......trust me on this, I was an archaeologist, I did a lot of digging......and I've gardened on Lanarkshire's heavy blue clay soils for over fifty years.......digging a foot down here is damned hard work, especially if you have to expose a lot of ground a foot down to obtain rhizomes.

Maybe on sand, it might be easy on sand. Madder roots and liquorice roots are easy on sandy soil, but blooming hard work on clay.

M

Look on the plus side u could make pots and fishing lures with all that clay

 

[Toddy]

I make pots, and it grows brilliant spuds for all it's clay soil, and fruit trees love it, and rasps and rhubarb, then again so do the willows .....lot of very old willows where I live, and I make basketry stuff too.

It's carp for liquorice and madder though, and apparently for rhizomes on bracken.
.....that might not be a bad thing actually.

 

[Spirit fish]

I make pots, and it grows brilliant spuds for all it's clay soil, and fruit trees love it, and rasps and rhubarb, then again so do the willows .....lot of very old willows where I live, and I make basketry stuff too.

It's carp for liquorice and madder though, and apparently for rhizomes on bracken.
.....that might not be a bad thing actually.

What do u use to temper your clay

 

[Toddy]

Usually I use gritty sand. If you rub a stone on a harder one, you'll end up with a pretty effective way to shape stone. I have a warp weighted loom that was used for Bronze/Iron age demonstrations. I ground the stones for the weights just by rubbing sandstone round and round and round on a concrete slab. Same way I made the weight for my pump drill. Doing all that gave me a pile of gritty sand.
Having said that, I've crushed up shells before now to do it too. Shell temper has a long provenace on our coasts and islands. Beacharra ware for instance. That stuff is hearth fired, and sealed with milk lipids, so ideal for the experimenting bushcrafter