#polypody fern

[encryptedlunacy]

Y'all ever have little clusters of miscellaneous pics you take that don't really fit anywhere but bring so much joy for the little dense ecosystems and little features of nature and stuff bc I have so many of these and the joy they bring me is ridiculous

[luimneach]

wild garlic carpet and little epiphytic polypody fern garden growing on top of tree :-)

[frolicingintheforest]

Rock Cap Fern (Polypodium virginianum)

[stefano-bonalume]

Polypodium vulgare

[fernandfungi]

Three identification photos of Polypody fern (Polypodium virginianum) growing between boulders on a forested lakeshore. Polypodys are my favourite fern species! Yes I am a fern nerd if you couldn’t tell from our business name! Polypody virginianum, Polypody glycyrrhiza, and Polypodium vulgare are edible and medicinal ferns, but you don’t eat the tiny fiddleheads, you eat the rhizomes (roots, sort of). The rhizomes are sweet and throat-soothing, tasting of licorice. All over the world this little fern family has been used by Europeans and First Nations as medicine to treat colds, flus, lung congestion, sore throats, and diarrhea. It was also an alternative to candy where there wasn’t any.

The species that has angel’s singing around it is Polypodium glycyrrhiza or “licorice fern” from the Pacific Northwest. It is the sweetest of them all and tastes the most strongly like actual licorice root. The rhizome can be chewed fresh, picked out of the moss of big leaf maple trees. Drying truly enhances it though and then it is an amazing flavour for liqueurs, mead, candy, desserts, and herbal medicines. Add it to cough syrups, immune system boosting tinctures, medicinal mushroom extracts, and herbal tea blends.

The rhizomes are sweetest in the spring, but to harvest polypody ferns sustainably we should forage for the rhizomes in autumn (when it is still pretty sweet) and only harvest 10-20% of one area. Look for them on large rocks and fallen trees for accessibility. Also, ferns are awesome! Another “fairy” plant throughout different cultures.

[geopsych]

Moss and a polypody fern. <3 Good woodland things.