Martin Brown wrote:
That is more or less correct. But in Japan young bracken shoots are
cooked and eaten as the delicacy "mountain greens". They don't taste
particularly good to eat and I avoided them after working out the
translation. Some details on the active ingredient - nasty stuff...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptaquiloside

Forms a powerful alkylating agent and seriously damages DNA.

Which is odd, since Japanese cuisine and longevity are always lauded
about (tending to people pointing fingers at how healthy eating fish
is).