Bracken

Names
Bracken, Brake, Common Bracken (English, from an Old Norse word for fern)

Eagle fern (English)

Feto-comum, feteira, feiteira, feito (Portuguese)

Pteridium aquilinum (Scientific)

Local culture and history
Bracken is native to this area, but because it is so good at taking root and proliferating in disturbed areas, it is sometimes considered "invasive". Bracken is especially good at dominating land that has been burned by wildfire. Certainly in the immediate aftermath of the 2017 fires, bracken seemed like the most prolific individual plant species to sprout on this land. Subsequent years of frequent cutting have increased the diversity of species in those areas somewhat, and in the places where tractors and digging have thoroughly uprooted them, they seem to have been largely (but not entirely) replaced by grasses and wildflowers.

The fact that a native plant can become "invasive" under certain circumstances is interesting and makes me think about the role of humans in the creation of these circumstances. According to an article on the spread of bracken in Britain, before human-led deforestation, Bracken had evolved to play a relatively minor role in open woodland and forest margins. However, once we opened up the canopy, bracken moved in to dominate those areas. This supports the idea that it is not the plant that is invasive, but rather that these large stands of dense bracken are the by-product of human-led processes of ecological disequilibrium.

The fresh shoots of bracken (fiddleheads) have been traditionally eaten in many places, although I don't know about them being eaten here. They are generally thought to be a bit toxic and carcinogenic, so eating them isn't a good idea. Who knows what we'll do come to the apocalypse?

Bracken has a reputation for being a bit of a dick. Notable examples of dickishness include Ryan's eye injury from a pointy bracken stick, cut hands from pulling them out, and the fact that they are really really hard to get rid of.

Although it's generally considered something to be removed, bracken is being used locally for:


 * Animal bedding (common)
 * Mulching vegetable beds (Rosa does this)
 * Shielding tomatoes and other vegetables from scorching sunlight (Miquelina does this)

What is it like?
Below ground, bracken makes webs of thick roots. You can break an individual strand apart quite easily, but together they are pretty impenetrable. They're brown on the outside with fibrous layers of white and cream and I think maybe sometimes other colours like pinks and oranges. I'll have to check. A little bit of bracken root can spread and grow very easily.

Above ground, bracken emerges as individual shoots. They unfurl into a straight stalk with a fingery frond, like a leaf. When fully formed they can be smaller than your foot, or taller than your whole body.

You can tell bracken apart from other ferns here because of the way it grows individual fronds out of the ground rather than clumps that come out from one spot. But also because the fingers of its fronds have fingers growing off them too.

When we moved onto the land in May 2018, the bracken was bright green and as tall as us. We knew that there were terraces on the land, because we had seen them in 2017 after the fire, but the bracken had all but consumed them. Trying to find our way through it felt like adventuring through some kind of prehistoric land, crushing stands of bracken in front of us while the frond tickled our faces.

Lifecycle
The fronds develop spores along the edges of their undersides, which disperse as they dry out, making baby brackens and spreading their carcinogens on the wind.

Interactions with soil
Bracken is really good at getting phosphorus out of soils and making it available for other life.

https://academic.oup.com/jpe/article/15/4/783/6376063

Interactions with fire
Dry bracken burns easily and can be a ladder fuel to take fire up into the canopy.

The bracken was so happy here after the fire. I guess, having evolved to bide its time at the margins of forests until canopy breaks occur, forest fires have probably always been when bracken really comes into its own. I suppose it makes nice shade for baby trees, and provides them with lots of nutrient rich mulch. According to science, this seems to be true for some shade tolerant tree species at least