Fiddlehead Fern

Also fiddlehead greens

A fiddlehead is not a special kind of fern but the coiled (crosier) form of any new fern that has not yet unfurled. Ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), pictured here, is the species usually collected in Canada and the mainland United States (in Hawaii, Diplazium esculentum is common). Of Asian origin, ostrich fern is one of more than twenty species that regularly figured in the diet of early American Indians, according to the ethnobotanist Barrie Kavasch, author of Native Harvests.