What are brackens?

Fern class, brackens are one of the oldest known plants, with fossil samples that date 55 million years. It is one of the most successful, widespread plants, missing only in dry deserts and on the continent of Antarctica. Leaving the Scandinavian word for "Fern" is a common name reserved for the family of plants Dennstaedaedtiaceae . Suddenly they were widely classified in the family pteridium , but are identified in about ten different genetic species.

Brachens are characterized by their large triangular and highly joint structure of leaves called leaves. Everyone can grow to more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) long. Plants are appropriately large, from 3.3 to 9.8 feet (1 to 3 m) high. Their primitive vascular stems can measure a diameter of 0.4 inches (1 cm). Also characteristic, leaves develop like tight curls of plant tissues that develop and expand to mature size.S plant. It lacks hard tissue of the cambium tissue of trees. OnThe difference from years that die every growing season, the reproductive cycle Brackens dictates that they will survive for two or more years. In alternating years, they are reproduced sexually and asexually. Two gamet cells with the same chromosomes, sperm and ovaries, fuse and the following year multiply into unicellular spores lining the underside of the leaves to be distributed by wind.

Spores spread underground as a rootstock called rhizome. Individual plants shoot from this root. Environmentally, brackens serves as a low canopy for creatures and plants that benefit from another cover and shadow. It is an ecologically food for many insect larvae. Uncontrolled, they are an aggressive and invasive plant.

Part of the extraordinary evolutionary success of Brachens is their secretion of allelopathic chemicals. Complex compounds, rnemeters into the surrounding soil, are toxic and inhibit germination of other competitorsplant species. Some of these chemicals are potentially natural insecticides and herbicides.

Brachens are also food for people. It is a delicacy commonly called fidDeleeads, consumed either raw, cooked or pickled, are curled immature leaves of the plant. Their rootstocks are used to brew beer; Also dried and ground for starch flour. In Japan, flour is baked in cakes and confectionery. In Korea, the violin is steamed by rice into a conventional bowl called bibimbap.

Ferries were the basis for the native Maori from New Zealand and the brackens was used as a herbal remedy against the parasitic worms of the digestive tract. However, the lived brackens are a proven carcinogen in some laboratory animals, perhaps because of their spores. Consumed raw excessively, can cause the condition commonly called beriberi, atrophy and paralysis of the nerve, circulatory and digestive systems. Although studies have proved to be inconclusive, even cooked and slightly consumed plants are suspicious reagentsand fatal cancer of the stomach.