Licorice Fern

The licorice fern, also called the many-footed fern or sweet root, is a summer-deciduous fern of the family Polypodiaceae native to northwestern North America, from southern Alaska and southwestern Yukon through coastal British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California, with a separate population in Idaho. Its once-divided, triangular fronds, one to two feet long with finely toothed margins, grow from a creeping, reddish-brown rhizome that tastes of licorice. It grows in shaded, damp locations, often on moss-covered maple trunks and logs below 600 meters elevation, and Indigenous peoples including the Squamish, Haida and Kwakwaka'wakw traditionally chewed its rhizome for flavor and used it to treat colds and sore throats.