Photo Above: Christmas fern fiddleheads are not edible and can be toxic. © Bruce Ingram.
In decades and centuries past, settlers in these mountains consumed what they called the fiddleheads of ferns. But just what is a fiddlehead? Mitchell Dech, a farmer and naturalist from Fayette County, West Virginia, clarifies some of the confusion about the term itself.
“In early spring, the fiddlehead stage of a fern is the fresh, new growth that looks like the curved end of a fiddle,” he says. “If you look at the end of a violin, that decorative curl is sort of like what you can visualize in a fern. But people should know that two of the Blue Ridge Mountain’s most common ferns, the Christmas and the cinnamon, have fiddlehead stages that are not edible and that can be toxic.”
The ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) is the species where its fiddleheads are reputed to be edible. However, in our region, the ostrich fern can only be found in Virginia and West Virginia and it is certainly not common in those states. The green fronds of the ostrich species look sort of like the plumes of its namesake bird, but by the time an individual fern has reached that stage of growth, the plant will be long past the fiddlehead stage, of course.
Dech’s advice, and mine as well, is not to eat the fiddlehead stage of a young fern. The chances are too great that you would be consuming a toxic species.
A new edition of Bruce and Elaine Ingram’s book, Living the Locavore Lifestyle is out. For more information: bruceingramoutdoors@gmail.com.
