Diplazium esculentum


Diplazium esculentum, the vegetable fern, is an edible fern found throughout Asia and Oceania. It is probably the most commonly consumed fern.
The genus Diplazium is in the family Athyriaceae, in the eupolypods II clade of the order Polypodiales, in the class Polypodiopsida.

Description

This plant is a large perennial fern with ascending rhizome of about 20 cm high and covered with short rufous scales of about 1 cm long. The plant is bipinnate with long brownish petioles, and the petiole base is black and covered with short scales. The frond can reach 1.5 cm in length, and the pinnae is about 8 cm long and 2 cm wide.

Uses

The young fronds are stir-fried and used in salads.
It is known as pucuk paku and paku tanjung in Malaysia, pakô in the Philippines, sayur paku in Indonesia, dhekia in Assam "Dhenki Shaak in Bengali ", paloi saag Sylheti, ningro in Nepali,dingkia in Boro and linguda in northern India, referring to the curled fronds. In Thailand it is known as phak khut. They may have mild amounts of fern toxins but no major toxic effects are recorded.

Pharmacological effects

The extract also had alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity.

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