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The Republic of Croatia is spread in geographical and climatic conditions that support a great diversity of habitats and associated plant taxa, many of which can be used for food or medicine. However, urbanization, loss of natural habitats, as well as changes in people’s dependence on the natural resources from the surrounding environment may lead to the loss of valuable knowledge about the use of plants and mushrooms. With the aim of studying and preserving this knowledge in the continental north-western part of Croatia, an ethnobotanical survey was undertaken at the two study areas—Valpovo and Đurđevac, which included a total of 17 settlements. A total of 103 informants, 65% female and 35% male, aged between 22 and 83 years, participated in an interview using pre-planned questionnaires. The informants reported 131 plants belonging to 55 families and 17 mushroom taxa. The largest number of plants belonged to the families of Rosaceae, Lamiaceae, Asteraceae, and Apiaceae. In both areas, the informants cultivate and also gather wild plants, but these practices are better preserved in the area of Đurđevac where 109 taxa from 47 families were recorded. In addition to cultivated and gathered plants, informants from the Valpovo area also reported the use of purchased plants. Plants and mushrooms are mostly used as food (21 plant taxa and 17 mushrooms), but plants also serve as medicine (68 taxa), as both food and medicine (35 taxa), feed for cattle (11 taxa), repellent (four taxa), and/or space freshener (two taxa). The most frequently used wild plants are Chamomilla recutita, Mentha x piperita, and Urtica dioica, while Boletus edulis, Agaricus campestris, and Macrolepiota procera are the most often used mushrooms. The results indicate that the local people in the studied north-western part of Croatia still nurture the practice of cultivating and gathering plants and that herbal remedies are considerably important among the informants. The study should be further extended to broaden and preserve valuable ethnobotanical knowledge and encourage the protection of culturally important plants of the studied area. Full article

Background: This is the first ethnobotanical study focused on medicinal plants traditionally recommended by traditional healers (THs) of Eastern Morocco. In this work, we documented the medicinal plants recommended by THs and highlighted the value and importance of medicinal plants recommended by specialist healers. Methods: A quali-quantitative ethnobotanical method has been performed, snowball sampling and structured interviews were used to evaluate the traditional plant knowledge by traditional healers in the study area. Species identification was performed and verified from the African Plant Database and Plant List. Two Relative Cultural Importance indices were used for this analysis “Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) and Frequency of Citation (FC)”. Results: A total of 135 plants were inventoried in our surveys. These species belong to 64 families and were reported to be used to treat 23 different categories of ailments. The botanical profile of the plants listed is dominated by LAMIACEAE’s Family with 12 species, followed by FABACEAE (11 species) and ASTERACEAE (10 species). In the category of the digestive system, nutrition problems and nervous system problems seem to be the predominant diseases treated. The Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) results indicated that cancer and gastrointestinal disorders had a higher concordance among informants (ICF = 0.60 and 0.58 respectively). Conclusion: Our results, showed that the Traditional healers, in Eastern Morocco, hold impressive knowledge related to the use of medicinal plants. This observation is reflected in the high number of medicinal plants recommended for the medication of the population. Furthermore, the consistency of healers in this area of study is justified by the ICF values. Full article

Health requires healthy food. Healthy foods are those that provide the nutrients needed to sustain the body’s well-being and retain energy. Food is the substances consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy. Ayurveda, the science of life, provides a clear context for food in healthy, as well as diseased, persons. Ayurveda explains the influence of food in different stages of a disease, such as in aetiology, manifestation, and treatment, as well as regimens to be followed. There are so many categories of healthy food explained in Ayurveda science. Most of them are of plant origin. Medicated porridge is a medicated rice soup, which is an important dietary regimen discussed in the Ayurvedic medicinal system. A special medicated rice named “Karkkidaka kanji” is usually included in a seasonal food regimen in Kerala, especially in the monsoon or rainy season (June to August). This medicated gruel contains more than 25 herbs, 9 pulses, and cereals that help in boosting one’s immunity. It acts as a detoxifying agent, as well as a remedy for rheumatic disorder, and mainly occurs seasonally. The ingredients of “karkkidaka kanji” include shashtika shali (red rice), chandrashoora (garden cress), dasamoola churna (root of 10 medicinal plants), trikatu (3 pungent herbs), dasapushpa (10 herbal flowers), methika (fenugreek), jeera (cumin seed), coconut milk, jaggery, and water. The properties of these herbal medicines make this gruel a delectable, nutritious, and medicated food. The therapeutic effect of these drugs includes the prevention of respiratory ailments; relief from arthritis pain and swelling; enhanced digestion; reduced constipation; and antipyretic, analgesic, and stress relieving effects, etc. Through the literary search related to these ingredients, one can establish the therapeutic effect of the traditional medicated porridge, “The Karkkidaka Kanji”. Full article

Most of traditional knowledge about plants and their uses is fast disappearing because of socio-economic and land use changes. This trend is also occurring in bio-cultural refugia, such as mountain areas. New data on Traditional Ethnobotanical Knowledge (TEK) of Italian alpine regions were collected relating to three valleys (Cogne, Valsavarenche, Rhêmes) of the Gran Paradiso National Park. Extensive dialogues and semi-structured interviews with 68 native informants (30 men, 38 women; mean age 70) were carried out between 2017 and 2019. A total of 3918 reports were collected, concerning 217 taxa (including 10 mushrooms, 1 lichen) mainly used for medicinal (42%) and food (33%) purposes. Minor uses were related to liquor making (7%), domestic (7%), veterinary (5%), forage (4%), cosmetic (1%) and other (2%). Medicinal plants were used to treat 14 ailment categories, of which the most important were respiratory (22%), digestive (19%), skin (13%), musculoskeletal (10%) and genitourinary (10%) diseases. Data were also evaluated by quantitative ethnobotanical indexes. The results show a rich and alive traditional knowledge concerning plants uses in the Gran Paradiso National Park. Plants resources may provide new opportunities from the scientific point of view, for the valorization of local products for health community and for sustainable land management. Full article

Studies suggesting that medicinal plants are not chosen at random are becoming more common. The goal of this work is to shed light on the role of botanical families in ethnobotany, depicting in a molecular phylogenetic frame the relationships between families and medicinal uses of vascular plants in several Catalan-speaking territories. The simple quantitative analyses for ailments categories and the construction of families and disorders matrix were carried out in this study. A Bayesian approach was used to estimate the over- and underused families in the medicinal flora. Phylogenetically informed analyses were carried out to identify lineages in which there is an overrepresentation of families in a given category of use, i.e., hot nodes. The ethnobotanicity index, at a specific level, was calculated and also adapted to the family level. Two diversity indices to measure the richness of reported taxa within each family were calculated. A total of 47,630 use reports were analysed. These uses are grouped in 120 botanical families. The ethnobotanicity index for this area is 14.44% and the ethnobotanicity index at the family level is 68.21%. The most-reported families are Lamiaceae and Asteraceae and the most reported troubles are disorders of the digestive and nutritional system. Based on the meta-analytic results, indicating hot nodes of useful plants at the phylogenetic level, specific ethnopharmacological research may be suggested, including a phytochemical approach of particularly interesting taxa. Full article