speaking of the spring

With temperature continuously warming up and wildflowers all over the place, I walk around with my camera to take a pictures of, well, ferns.  First, here isWarabi (Pteridium aquilinum):

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One of the most well known edible plants in Japan.  They seem to be growing all over the village wherever it has good sunlights.  In the past, people kept grasslands as grasslands partially so they can harvest these plants.
Next is Zenmai (Osmunda japonica):

click to enlarge

While warabi is almost always split into three, these zenmai are shaped just like fiddle heads.  Because to eat zenmai you first have to remove those hairs around the tips and such, I hear it takes more effort to eat them.  I have not looked into them and their life histories, but it seems these two species occupy different niche of the environment, for they never grow together in the same place.

The day after I took these shots, I had to buy the warabi-mochi, a sweets made from the starch extracted from the roots of the warabi.  Making the warabi-mochi myself was a bit too much of an effort...