Is this the most dangerous plant in the UK? 🌿 #sciencefacts #botany #ukwildlife

[verditerthistle]

FYI this video is only talking about the bracken fern, look up how to identify it if you’re concerned. like if it’s in ur yard and you have kids or pets or smth. if you want to remove it, look up proper safety techniques if you’re concerned about accidentally ingesting the spores by disturbing the plant. it does live on every continent except antarctica.

furthermore, while the spores do contain that carcinogen, the content is low, and your exposure to them is likely no more than any other carcinogenic pollutant in the air around you. the bracken fern has been studied more than other fern because of its medicinal uses and use in food in some cultures throughout the world.

the entire fern does contain other carcinogens, which have been found to cause cancer in livestock and other animals regularly ingesting the fern. it is possible for it to cause cancer in humans, but just don’t eat it and you’ll be fine. most ferns won’t harm you as long as you don’t eat them.

tl;dr: go have fun in nature don’t eat a bracken fern (or any fern really) the #1 rule is don’t eat things if you’re not 100% certain what they are. washing your hands can be good practice too :)



there is a study by Lars Holm Rasmussen on ptaquiloside in bracken ferns that I reccomend reading if you want more detailed info about the toxicity and possible carcinogenic compounds in bracken ferns. again, the risk really is only with eating bracken ferns, and only sometimes…

(i’m not a scientist or professional, i’ve just done some research and hopefully it helps ease some folks concerns :)

[AlasFanya-om]

Anyone else watching and going “ah, well fuck”

[lucytansey-mo]

the amount of times i played with these as a

[bibikombi]

There was so much of that in my school, we touched it a lot 🥹

[mickydizzal]

I’ve walked and played in these hundreds of times 😂

[Natasha___.]

I used to pick them off, nobody thought about telling us sooner? 😂

[tantuce]

Now one fern started growing in my orchid pot. Probably I brought the spores in with rain water. The fern is still small, and I don't know if it's bracken fern or not.

[All.i.need.]

Ohw, at 35 only finding this out now... I used to pick those little spots off as a kid 😬

[TheUnlikelyBaker]

picked a load of these bracken leaves along with other wild flower and fauna to make a wild bouquet for my gf, always playing around in them. wish me luck🙃

[nadger]

I used to play in ferns when i was a kid, There were massive patches of it next to the wood. We would roil around hiding in it. :/

[choziller]

I had a furn plant in my garden as a kid and I loved the way it looked and the texture so I would constantly fiddle and tough them .... 😅😢

[Gomorragh]

these ferns were a lot more common in areas around towns in the 80's and earlier, the problem is that walking through them while eating random foods wasnt that common in those days, maybe you would occasionally forget to wash your hands, but for the most point soon as you came in you would get washed and changed because you was such a mess, but worrying about plants was less than the whole "trying to clean up after hatteries" and other more dangerous industrialisation problems (hatteries ended up lacing the ground with high levels of mercury and other problematic chemicals, Salford was having its ground scraped and a large swathe of buildings renovated to remove the high level of mercury in the early 90's)

[Rgsetters]

So in this case the ferns won't make you want to die.

They'll actually kill you.

[fb]

I don't care for botanics and I have no idea how to distinguish these Godforsaken ferns! What I do care about is the fact that ferns that looked exactly like in the video grew all over the garden where I played as a child and that I used these to build shelters and haeddresses for myself.

[markpash]

i love the cult of the lamb song so much

[CarwynAndrews]

How likely are these to cause cancer? I used to touch these all the time when I was younger

[ateo]

"There's not much in the UK that'll kill you, but an awful lot that'll make you want to die"

*Transport for London intensifies*

[apollyon]

What the fuck?! I played with these my entire childhood!

[Bobbanley]

There’s not a lot in the Uk that will kill you but there’s still some 🍀☘️💀

[blaisedunbar]

Also stingy netles Holly dam those were so bad when you would get kit bye then y’all no the struggle of that ☠️