Hemionitis esculenta Retz.; Athyrium esculentum (Retz.) Copel.

Common names: paca (a name used through-out the Pacific and in Southeast Asia), often called ho'i'o in local markets

Naturalized

Latin esculentus, edible, alluding to the use of this fern for food.

Plants medium-sized, terrestrial. Caudices erect, usually unbranched, slender, to 1.5 m tall, to 5 cm diam. Stipes to 50 cm long, stout, dark brown, glabrous. Blades of 2 types: small blades 1-pinnate with deeply lobed, broad pinnae; larger blades 2-pinnate, becoming 1-pinnate then pinnatifid distally, to 1 + m long. Pinnae stalked, to 50+ cm long. Ulti-mate segments subsessile to short-stalked, simple, 3-8 x 0.5-2 cm, margins serrate to crenate or lobed, tips often acute. Veins prominent, pinnately branched, forming ribs adaxially, lower 2-4 branches anastomosing to form zigzag excurrent veins to sinuses. Sori linear along veins, forming a herring-bone pattern.

Usually found in large, untidy, straggly stands in shady valleys with wet, swampy soils, often along streams, at lower elevations, on all major islands except Moloka'i, where it may be present but remains undocumented.

This commonly eaten fern from Southeast Asia and the Pacific was probably purposely introduced as a garden vegetable and was first collected on Kaua 'i in 1910.

Diplazium esculentum grows in wet soils and is characterized by a herringbone pattern of its sori; erect, narrow caudices up to 1.5 m tall; and its 1-pinnate small fronds and 2-pinnate larger fronds.