“Invasive bracken” - so strange reading this when I am in Maine! 
I’m in Michigan… bracken is definitely invasive!!!
Bracken fern is native where I live (pineywoods of SE Texas), but is problematic in a nearby habitat restoration area. After prescribed burns to remove woody vegetation, the ferns are much faster to come back than the wildflowers the burns are trying to encourage to grow, shading them before they come up in the spring.
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Yeah, I live on forest land and Bracken IS the understory here. Now I’m supposed to call it Eagle Fern. It is native, and what concerned me was learning it’s toxic.
Bracken fern is poisonous to livestock and humans. The poison can be passed into milk and can increase the risk of gastric and esophageal cancers.
When added to whatever toxicity is in everything the farmers spray that has damaged the insect population here…
I’m not sure I have a chance of getting out of here alive!
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It is technically toxic, but I have read that you can process the bracken and make it edible. Of course, you can process plastic and make whatever they sell at McDonald’s (it is not food), so I’ll err on the side of caution!
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Bracken is a common name. I’m thinking Bracken can refer to many species of ferns.
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Bracken (genus Pteridium) is very widely distributed – native in most places. It is also highly competitive plant that can dominate ecosystems, even exclude other species, where it is native. We can’t really call it invasive – it’s native in most places where it grows – but it can become a problem for other species and you may choose to control it.
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I have been corrected in the last year (more or less) to call the Bracken “Eagle Fern” so I try. It’s hard because I grew up thinking Bracken isn’t a fern. Maybe the rest of the brackens are getting new names, too.
I wondered over calling it invasive, it is native. It must at least be called aggressive.
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Common names are frustratingly slippery. One may, of course, call Pteridium Eagle Fern if one wants to, but I see to pressing reason to try to change the name (bracken) that Pteridium has had for decades if not centuries.
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from Middle English, then Old Norse. Yes, centuries.
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In the UK it’s an interesting case because it’s both native and a threat to our other native ecosystems (like the uplands) because humans have screwed them up so much.
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Technically, that should only apply to Pteridium aquilinum. And I would push back against that “correction” by showing them all the field guides which call it bracken and asking them to show me an equal number which call it eagle fern. Call it a field guide poll, majority rules.
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I usually ID mine as Common Bracken. I think I still will stop withdrawing when I’m outvoted.
I was sent a link to a Pteridium species explanation, but honestly, that technical stuff is above my pay grade. One of the coolest thing about iNat? They let me play anyway!
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- Pteridium aquilinum is definitely native in my neck of the woods (Northeastern Italy).
- Yes, it’s poisonous. Initially I feared for my freely roaming goats and sheep. Well, it turned out that neither species even looks at fern. Nor do the deer.
- Burning the ferns (above ground) is pointless. Their rhizomes go quite deep, and so remain protected from fire. Quite reverse, burning ends up boosting the plant’s growth by removing its competitors for space and light. On steep slopes however the fern can come in handy to prevent erosion.
- What does work in terms of limiting its expansion is consistently cutting it down repeatedly during the year, year after year. That way the rhizomes end up getting starved – no fronds => no nutrients to store. It’s a system that worked for me with escaped bamboo; by assiduously cutting every little bamboo shoot, the rhizomes did indeed give up in the end. I am adopting the same approach with Pteridium aquilinum.
- Meanwhile, I use the cuttings for something useful. The fronds work just fine as mulching in vegetable gardens (just like straw or hay), with the added benefit that they keep slugs and snails away from my salad and cabbage (as do all ferns for that matter).
- Pteridium aquilinum has traditionally been used for animal bedding in lieu of straw, especially during the winter months. In certain parts of Slovenia it was specifically grown for that purpose (stelja = litter) in wooded areas called steljniki: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steljnik1.JPG
If life gives you lemons (bracken), make lemonade (mulching and bedding). ;-)
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I have trails through the property that are the animals’ trails I try to keep raked clear. We all enjoy clear ways through the woods. There’s fresh tracks daily. Twice a year I do what I call Whackin’ Bracken, swinging the rake to top the fronds off. Yes, after a decade there are fewer.
If anything ate them it would be a bonus.
I gave up trying to get them out of the “garden”, those roots are impossible.
In the fall, we call it “magic Bracken”, it’s incredibly good for deer to hide in, same color.
Some of the swampy area it grows five feet tall or more, but the majority is about knee high.
Out here…nature’s so bountiful.
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Your Whackin’ Bracken ritual certainly helps, especially if performed before the spores mature in the fall (if in warm enough climates, otherwise they don’t even bother with spores and just proliferate via rhizome). The thing is, as you say, it takes YEARS.
The bracken however came in useful when I needed to create a hedge to keep my animals from destroying my neighbour’s young olive and fruit trees. I piled up dead branches along the spots where the animals crossed the property line. The branches alone didn’t act as a barrier, but bracken and brambles soon filled the spaces, followed by other species. Being tall and unattractive to the sheep and goats, I assume the bracken blocked their view of the juicy young trees on the other side, successfully keeping them from touring the neighbourhood.
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