Ostrich Fern | nichepoetryandprose

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Posts Tagged ‘Ostrich Fern’

making friends with the ferns #2

The onset of plants in spring is overwhelming. This year, I seem to see ferns everywhere, probably because the fiddlehead of the Ostrich Fern is a delicacy in New Brunswick. The Ostrich Fern (Matteuccia Struthiopteris (L.) Todaro) grows in riparian (shoreland) areas all along the St. John River and its tributaries.

This time of year, car and trucks park in small roads off the old Trans-Canada, and you can glimpse people picking fiddleheads in lowlying places along the river. They concentrate on what they are doing, their backs bent, hardly looking up from their picking. People have favorite fiddleheading spots and usually follow a code, leaving a percentage of the fiddleheads to grow and sustain the ferns for future years.

I only picked a few fiddelheads this year. They were a little older than they are ordinarily picked, but they were delicious. The best fiddleheads are picked when they are just above the surface. After picking they are cleaned, a very easy undertaking, and boiled or steamed until very well cooked.

The cooking liquor is discarded – its dark amber-red color is due to high concentrations of shikimik acid. Once cooked, the fiddleheads are a flavorful green, served with butter or margarine. When my husband was young, his family ate a meal of fiddleheads, new potatoes and shad at fiddleheading time.

Warning:

1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification;

2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives;

3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.

In town, people are selling fiddleheads from trucks and at small stands, and there will certainly be Fiddleheads at the Farmer’s Market today in Fredericton. Usually, the sellers do a brisk business, keeping the fiddleheads fresh in portable coolers and in buckets. I watched a vendor bagging the green fiddleheads, giving the clear plastic bag a deft twirl to seal it before he handed it to the buyer.

Have you ever eaten fiddleheads?

waking from a dream

Ostrich Fern (Matteuccia Struthiopteris (L.) Todaro)

bottom-land thicket

naked in spring

a rumpled bed

the throws of hibernation

new growth cocooned

in dry leaves, bent skeletons

last summer’s fern

sun surge

insult

between curtains

green fiddlehead

uncoils

head down

hesitant fist thrust

between pillows and down

stretches fingers

filigreed shadow

new blocking of sun

brown coverlet

kicked

new green bedspread

new green canopy

green shade

Published www.nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com Nov. 9, 2011

© Jane Tims 2011

Warning:

1. never eat any plant if you are not absolutely certain of the identification;

2. never eat any plant if you have personal sensitivities, including allergies, to certain plants or their derivatives;

3. never eat any plant unless you have checked several sources to verify the edibility of the plant.

Written by jane tims

May 19, 2012 at 7:41 am

Posted in edible wild, growing and gathering

Tagged with art, edible plants, ferns, nature, Ostrich Fern, pencil drawing, picking fiddleheads, poetry, St. John River

making friends with the ferns #1

with 8 comments

November is an odd time to think about identifying ferns, I admit. But identification of the evergreen ferns is still possible, as they hang on to their identity in the frosty air and even beneath the snow. Also, ferns are so beautiful, it is fun just to look over the field guides and reminisce about the days of summer.

a pressed Long Beech Fern in my copy of Boughton Cobb’s ‘Field Guide to the Ferns’

Ferns belong to the group of vascular plants known as the Pteridophytes. They have stems, roots and leaves but no seeds. Instead, they reproduce by spores and have complicated life cycles.

Ferns grow in many habitats. In our area they are found in moist and shaded woodlands. They are also inhabitants of fields, cliffs, wetlands and cityscapes. I have even seen ferns growing deep within the Howe Caverns of New York State where they have taken advantage of the scant habitat provided by artificial lighting.

The uniform ‘greenness’ of ferns and their highly patterned leaves make them popular as a motif, especially for home decorating and at Christmastime.

In New Brunswick, fiddleheads, the tightly coiled new leaves of the Ostrich fern (Matteuccia Struthiopteris (L.) Todaro), are collected for food every spring along the banks of rivers and their tributaries.