--------
| In a message dated 6/9/01 8:47:14 pm, UnknownSender@UnknownDomain writes:
|
| >Huh? I've pulled up bracken with my bare hands, and I've never had
| >any such problems. Bracken stalks only extend a short distance into
| >the ground, and then rapidly split up into small roots. They pull out
| >very easily, leaving the roots behind. Granted, you might have a
| >problem with hundreds of them, as with just about any sort of plant,
| >but light gloves would take care of that.
| >
| >Maybe you're thinking of some other fern species.
| No - I trained in Botany and Horticulture, and do know the difference between
| bracken and other fern species.
| I grew up in a heavily bracken polluted area in the south of England, and
| repeat that bracken stalks can lacerate the hands if pulled without gloves.
| That is, after the stalks harden up about mid season. I agree that they are
| soft early on in the season (at which time they can be cooked and eaten like
| asparagus, I have read).
| I was Head Gardener of a very famous garden on the west coast of
| Scotland for a while, and we had large areas of bracken there: neither my
| gardens staff nor the local forestry workers who came in to cut the wilder
| areas of the gardens with the scythe would have dreamt of pulling bracken
| stalks without leather glove protection.
| Nicolas B., Lanark,
Maybe you have rougher bracken thereabouts. Most of my esperience has
been with North American kinds. OTOH, I've seen some in Scandinavia
that seem very much like the bracken around here. Bracken ferns are
common to the entire north temperate zone, of course, but there are a
number of different species.
One warning I read a few years ago: Fern sprouts are a common part of
the Japanese diet, and lots of species are eaten. A study was done to
try to explain the distribution of several kinds of cancer that have
irregular geographic distributions in Japan. One thing that turned up
was a strong correlation between stomach cancer and eating bracken
sprouts. They said that no other fern showed a correlation with
stomach cancer (or any other disease), just brackens. So they
recommended not eating bracken until more studies had been done.
Now I live in New England, where "fiddlehead ferns" are common in
stores in the springtime. These aren't bracken ferns, so they're
probably quite safe.
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To
subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
