BackgroundBelarus is an Eastern European country, which has been little studied ethnobotanically. The aim of the study was to compare largely unpublished 19th century sources with more contemporary data on the use of wild food plants.MethodsThe information on 19th century uses is based on twelve, mainly unpublished, responses to Józef Rostafiński’s questionnaire from 1883, and the newly discovered materials of the ethnographer Michał Federowski, who structured his data according to Rostafiński’s questionnaire and documented it with voucher specimens. Rostafiński’s questionnaire was concerned mainly with Polish territories, but for historical reasons this also encompassed a large part of Belarus, and we analyzed only the twelve responses (out of the few hundred Rostafiński obtained), which concerned the present Belarus. These data were compared with a few 20th century ethnographic sources, and our own 40 interviews and questionnaires from Belarus.Results and discussion58 taxa of wild food plants used in the 19th century were identified. Some of them are still used in modern Belarus, others are probably completely forgotten. In the 19th century several species of wild greens were widely used for making soups. Apart from Rumex, other wild greens are now either forgotten or rarely used. The list of species used in the 20th and 21st century encompasses 67 taxa. Nearly half of them were mentioned by Rostafiński’s respondents. The list of fruit species has not changed much, although in the 19th century fruits were mainly eaten raw, or with dairy or floury dishes, and now apart from being eaten raw, they are incorporated in sweet dishes like jams or cakes. Modern comparative data also contain several alien species, some of which have escaped from cultivation and are gathered from a semi-wild state, as well as children's snacks, which were probably collected in the 19th century but were not recorded back then.ConclusionThe responses to Rostafiński from 1883 present extremely valuable historical material as the use of wild food plants in Belarus has since undergone drastic changes, similar to those, which have taken place in other Eastern European countries.

Pre-Linnaean herbaria have a growing value for botanists and historians of science. A unique example is a four volume herbarium from the early 18th century preserved in the archives of the Herbarium of the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw. They consist of one, originally five volume set. We proved that the plants had been gathered by the famous naturalist Georg Andreas Helwing (1666-1748), and his son-in-law, Matthias Ernst Boretius (1694-1738), and they annotated and classified the exhibits. Boretius was born in Prussia, in Lec (now: Giżycko). He acquired his academic training in Königsberg and Leiden, and deepened it by scientific travels. He was the first in Masuria to promote vaccination against smallpox. Earning the reputation of a distinguished scholar, he was appointed Royal Physician and Crown Councilor of the Prussian court. He died in 1738 at the age of just 44, leaving the herbarium vivum – a magnificent remnant of his times. There are over 900 cards with glued specimen, signed in three languages: Latin, German and Polish. It includes vascular plants, liverworts, true mosses, clubmosses, algae and macrofungi. Boretius implemented the system made known by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708). His system divided the plant world into 22 classes, based on flower morphology but also retaining the traditional split into trees, shrubs and forbs. The choice of this arrangement by Boretius was an innovation; the earlier plant collections of his tutor Helwing lacked any attempt to classify plant species.

Kolekcja Zielnika Wydziału Biologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (Herbarium WA) liczy około 500000 okazów. Zbiory te są gromadzone nieprzerwanie od 1816 r., czyli od początku istnienia Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. W skład kolekcji wchodzą przedstawiciele wszyst­kich grup organizmów zaliczanych w XIX w. do królestwa roślin, ale najliczniej reprezentowana jest flora nasienna, grzyby i mszaki. Ponad 90% zasobów pochodzi z Europy (z czego około połowa z terenu Polski). Kolekcja ma ogromną wartość historyczną, dydaktyczną i naukową. Dzięki nowym narzędziom molekularnym materiał zielnikowy coraz częściej służy do analiz sekwencji DNA, a wyniki badań są szeroko wykorzystywane w praktyce. W artykule przedstawiono znaczenie zielników na przykładzie prac konkretnych osób, m.in. Edwarda Strasburgera i Wacława Gajewskiego. Projekt IMBIO umożliwia opracowanie i digitalizację trzonu kolekcji zielnikowej, tzw. Flora Polonica. Liczy ona około 100000 okazów roślin okrytonasiennych z terenu Polski. Dzięki temu projektowi nieograniczona liczba osób uzyska poprzez internet dostęp do zasobów Zielnika WA.