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 The aim of the study was to compare largely unpublished 19th century sources with more contemporary data on the use of wild food plants.MethodsThe information on 19th century uses is based on twelve, mainly unpublished, responses to Józef Rostafiński’s questionnaire from 1883, and the newly discovered materials of the ethnographer Michał Federowski, who structured his data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.

The aim of this article is to study the geographical distribution and historical patterns of use of a little known root crop native to Europemarsh woundwort Stachys palustris L. The species grows in wet grasslands and arable fields. It produces edible tubers. Both ethnographic literature and archival sources were searched. Seventeen reliable references concerning the consumption of S. palustris in southern and south-eastern Poland were found. The tubers were usually dried and powdered, and then added to soups or to bread dough. They were also eaten as raw snacks. The plant was used mainly during food shortages in spring, until the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and later only as an occasional raw snack until the 1970s. Marsh woundwort was also eaten in western Ukraine (one reference). There are many references to the edibility of marsh woundwort in the eighteenth and nineteenth century European economic botany literature, particularly in Sweden and Great Britain. These publications tried to popularize the use of S. palustris as food. However, there is no firm evidence from these countries that marsh woundwort was used as food there. Marsh woundwort was also used, throughout northern and central Europe, as pig fodder and as a medicinal plant, particularly for healing wounds. Further studies on the nutritive value of this forgotten crop should be undertaken, particularly that there is little knowledge of the chemical composition of both marsh woundwort and its Asian relative Stachys affinis widely cultivated in China as a vegetable.

Manna grass (mainly but not exclusively G. fluitans) used to be widely gathered in most lowland areas of the present territory of Poland and western and southern Belarus. It had an important function as a component of tribute paid to local landowners by villagers, which led to the persistence of manna gathering even when this was not sustainable for peasants themselves. Manna grass was always an expensive food due to its time consuming gathering, but appreciated for its sweet taste and often served as dessert. In the nineteenth century marshes shrank significantly and the payment of tribute disappeared from the local economy, which gradually led to the total abandonment of Glyceria use around 1914. This article provides a detailed overview of Glyceria use as food within the borders of the former PolishLithuanian Kingdom (now Poland, Lithuania, western Belarus and western Ukraine) based on archaeobotanical, historical and ethnographic sources. The evidence for the continued use of manna since at least medieval times is abundant in historical accounts and ethnographic studies, but little has been reported in archaeobotanical findings due to the relatively small amounts of Glyceria consumed.

In 1883, Polish botanist Józef Rostafiński distributed a questionnaire to Poles with knowledge of peasant culture. Rostafiński asked about the names and uses of about 130 various plants, both wild and cultivated. About 370 individuals took part in the survey, sending nearly 860 letters. Only 359, sent by 227 correspondents, are now stored at the Museum of the Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden (Kraków, Poland). These letters contain nearly 25,800 records. Despite obtaining a vast amount of information from his enquiry, Rostafiński never made full use of the data. Rostafiński's questionnaire occupies quite an early position in the history of ethnobotany. It was the most significant one at that time in regard of its size, issues included in the questions and the obtained results.

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The Herbarium of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland (KRA) has extensive collections. The Pinaceae family in KRA embraces 1,057 herbarium sheets and contains representatives of eight out of 11 genera usually distinguished in the family. The collection of the family in KRA contains ca. 54–61% of the 220–250 species occurring in the world. The most numerous species (116 sheets) is <em>Pinus sylvestris</em>. There is one isoneotypus of <em>Larix decidua</em> Mill var. <em>carpatica</em> Domin (KRA 224704) and one syntypus of <em>Tsuga caroliniana</em> Engelm. (KRA 224989) in the collection. There are 706 sheets from Europe, 504 of them come from areas covered by the contemporary borders of Poland, 206 from North America, 98 from Asia, two from Africa, and one from Australia. The herbal material of the family deposited in KRA was collected in the past 200 years. The oldest specimen was collected in 1821. There are 65 sheets which date from the nineteenth century, 56 from the years 1900 to 1918, 173 from 1919 to 1939, 532 from 1944 to 2000, and 139 sheets from the twenty-first century. The most interesting collections include: the exsiccata from the nineteenth century, sheets from China (1925–1926), sheets collected by various Russian expeditions to Siberia, the collection of Professors Jan Kornaś and Anna Medwecka-Kornaś from North America, and collections documenting the scientific activity of the “Kraków geobotanical school” in the twentieth century.

plants of his time, after spending several years on expeditions to Central and South America, was to be employed as Inspector (the main gardener) of the Botanical Garden of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His employment encountered resistance from the Ministry of Denominations and Education Kraków in 1854. He worked on the reorganisation of the Botanical Garden and supervised new projects there. His activities contributed to an expansion of the Botanical Garden's plant collections. Warszewicz also brought a herbarium and a collection of tropical animals to Kraków. During his life in Kraków, Warszewicz was widely honoured, and after his death, a monument was erected to him and one of Kraków's streets was named after him.

From 1825 until his death, the Austrian botanist Franz Herbich lived in Galicia (a province of the Austrian Empire), where he established an effective network of associates. Towards the end of his life, he planned to hand over this network to the future Galician Physiographical Society, which was to continue his research. In 1865, thanks to his initiative, the Academic Society of Kraków established a Physiographical Commission to conduct natural history studies, which were from 1866 funded by the Galician Parliament. Austriacki botanik Franz Herbich od 1825 r. do swej śmierci mieszkał w Galicji (prowincji Cesarstwa Austriackiego). Zorganizował tam dobrze działającą sieć współpracowników. Pod koniec życia planował ją przekazać przyszłemu Galicyjskiemu Towarzystwa Fizjograficznemu, które kontynuowałoby jego badania. W 1865 r. dzięki jego inicjatywie Towarzystwo Naukowe Krakowskie zorganizowało Komisję Fizjograficzną, by prowadzić badania przyrodnicze. Badania te od 1866 r. były finansowane przez parlament galicyjski.