Bracken
| Bracken | ||||||||||||||
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| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Pteridium aquilinum |
Bracken is a large, coarse fern, classified as Pteridium aquilinum, in the family Hypolepidaceae[?]. It has probably the widest distribution of any fern in the world. Bracken is found on all continents except Antarctica and in all environments except for hot and cold deserts. Bracken is hardy but frost-tender, so in cold environments it is generally found growing on the sides of hills and in sheltered areas.
Bracken fiddleheads (the immature, tightly curled emerging fronds) have been considered edible by many cultures throughout history, and it is still commonly used today as a foodstuff. Bracken fiddleheads are either consumed fresh (and cooked) or preserved by salting, pickling, or sun drying. Both fronds and rhizomes have been used to brew beer, and rhizome starch has been used as a substitute for arrowroot. Bread can be made out of dried and powered rhizomes alone or with other flour. American Indians cooked the rhizomes, then peeled and ate them or pounded the starchy fiber into flour. In Japan starch from the rhizomes is used to make confections.
Bracken has also been used as a form of herbal remedy. Powdered rhizome has been considered particularly effective against parasitic worms. American Indians ate raw rhizomes as a remedy for bronchitis.
Bracken has been shown to be carcinogenic and is thought to be an important cause of the high incidence of stomach cancer in Japan. Bracken is currently under investigation as a possible source of new insecticides.
Bracken is a prolific and abundant plant in the highlands of Great Britain. It causes such a problem of invading pastureland that the British government has an eradication program. Special filters have even been used on some British water supplies to filter out the bracken spore.
Evolutionarily, bracken may be considered to be one of the most successful ferns. The plant sends up large, triangular fronds from a wide-creeping underground rootstock, and may form dense thickets. This rootstock may travel several feet (over a meter) underground between fronds. The fronds may grow up to eight feet (about 2.5 meters) long or longer with support, but typically are in the range of two to five feet high (about 0.5 meter to 1.5 meter).
Last of the Summer Wine, a British television sitcom, frequently featured scenes of the characters walking through bracken thickets.
External links
with upholsterer's ware, such as tickings, sackings, kidderminster
it, all belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, and who, they
and no other.
Western goods had their share here also, and several booths were
cantaloons, Devonshire kerseys, etc., from Exeter, Taunton,
which are the peculiars of this fair, and do not begin till the
begins to draw to a close. These are the wool and the hops.html">hops.html">hops; as for
they know how they sell at Stourbridge fair; the quantity.html">quantity that
possess a large part of the field on which the fair is kept to
from Canterbury and Maidstone in Kent, and from Farnham in Surrey,
places.
Enquiring why this fair should be thus, of all other places in
bulky a commodity be carried thither so far; I was answered by one
for this part of England, grow principally in the two counties of
in Essex, and there are very few planted anywhere else.
There are indeed in the west of England some quantities growing:
Wales, and the like; but the quantity is inconsiderable, and the
their drink being chiefly pale smooth ale, which required no hops,
north of the Trent; nor did I ever see one acre of hop-ground
they not only brew great quantities of beer in the north, but also
so they all come south of Trent to buy their hops; and here being
Yorkshire, and Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and all
itself; for I must not omit here also to mention, that the river
in its way from Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and that by this
carriage from London and other parts; first to the port of Lynn,
as I say, to the very edge of the fair.
.
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