noun
bracken; bracken fern
Refers to the plant Pteridium aquilinum, especially its edible young fiddleheads, a common wild vegetable in Japan.
春になると山でわらびを採る。
In spring, we pick bracken in the mountains.
わらびのあく抜きをしてから料理する。
I remove the bitterness from the bracken before cooking it.
Another edible wild fern with tightly coiled fiddleheads, often confused with わらび but a different species (Osmunda japonica).
The word わらび is of native Japanese origin. The kanji 蕨 is a phono-semantic compound used specifically for this plant.