Pteridium esculentum

Pteridium esculentum
Bracken at Chatswood West, Australia
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pteridophyta
Class:	Pteridopsida
Order:	Dennstaedtiales
Family:	Dennstaedtiaceae
Genus:	Pteridium
Species:	P. esculentum
Binomial name
Pteridium esculentum (G.Forst.) Cockayne

Pteridium esculentum, commonly known as Austral bracken or simply bracken, is a species of the bracken genus native to a number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Esculentum means edible.

First described as Pteris esculenta by German botanist Georg Forster in 1786, it gained its current binomial name in 1908. The Eora people of the Sydney region knew it as gurgi.

P. esculentum grows from creeping rhizomes, which are covered with reddish hair. From them arise single large roughly triangular fronds, which grow to 0.5–2 metres (1 ft 8 in–6 ft 7 in) tall. The fronds are stiff with a brown stripe.

It is found in all states of Australia apart from the Northern Territory, as well as New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Malaysia, Polynesia, and New Caledonia. Within Victoria it is widespread and common to altitudes of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). In New South Wales, it occurs in across central, eastern and southern parts of the state. It can also be weedy and invade disturbed areas. In Western Australia, it grows near the southern and western coastlines, as far north as Geraldton.

Like its northern hemisphere relatives, Pteridium esculentum is very quick to colonise disturbed areas and can outcompete other plants to form a dense understorey. It is often treated as a weed. It does create a more humid sheltered microclimate under its leaves and is food for a variety of native insects. Two species of fruit fly (Drosophila) were recorded in a field study near Sydney, Another study near Sydney yielded 17 herbivorous arthropods (15 insects and two mites), notable for the lack of Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) and Coleoptera (beetles).

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Wikipedia