Pneumatopteris pennigera. Pākau. Piupiu. Gully fern.
Previous names
Cyclosorus pennigerus, Dryopteris pennigera, Goniopteris pennigera (Colenso 1868a) , Polypodium pennigerum (in Best 1907), Thelypteris pennigera
Māori names
Common names
Food
Fronds used for wrapping hangi food (Colenso 1868a).
Young fronds eaten ( Best 1902).
In South Westland, leaves of the piupiu fern were wrapped around weka and other birds being cooked in the umu and were eaten as a relish to the flesh (Madgwick 1992)
Medicinal
In Whangerei, the scraped roots were used as poultices for boils - `very drawing" (Bell 1890).
Related pharmacology in Brooker Cambie and Cooper 1987
See Riley 1994 for information on medicinal uses of related plants elsewhere in the world.
Metadata
e27ff1e9-e4ad-4a7f-8e96-1dbfe712aeb6
name
28 May 2007
2 July 2020