Family: Athyriaceae
Diplazium esculentum (vegetable fern) is a fern native to tropical Asia, ranging eastward to the islands of the South Pacific, where it grows near waterways and in moist or wet ground in open, disturbed areas. The tender young uncoiling fronds are served raw in salads, cooked as a vegetable, or added to stir-fried dishes or stews. The most commonly eaten fern throughout its native range, vegetable fern was probably introduced to Hawai’i as a food plant in the late 1800s or early 1900s and has since escaped cultivation and become naturalized on the larger islands. Although it can spread aggressively by rhizomes and spores, and form large, untidy, straggly stands in shady valleys with wet, swampy soils, it is typically found in lower, non-native dominated ecosystems where its impacts on native biodiversity may be limited.
High Risk Traits:
- Thrives and spreads in regions with tropical climates
- Naturalized on Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui, and Hawaii (Hawaiian Islands) and elsewhere in the tropics
- An aggressive, weedy fern that may impact agriculture or the natural environment
- May compete with or impact certain endangered plants in the Hawaiian Islands, although not conclusively implicated in specific, detrimental effects
- Other Desmodium species are invasive weeds
- Shade tolerant
- Forms dense, monotypic stands
- Reproduces by spores and vegetatively by rhizomes and fragments
- Spores dispersed by wind and intentional cultivation
- Rhizomes and fragments dispersed by water and intentional cultivation
Low Risk Traits:
- Occurs primarily in lower elevation, non-native dominated habitats in the Hawaiian Islands, where impacts to native ecosystems and species may be limited
- Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
- Valued for its edible fronds
- Non-toxic