Alpine ethnobotany in Italy: traditional knowledge of gastronomic and medicinal plants among the Occitans of the upper Varaita valley, Piedmont

Abstract

A gastronomic and medical ethnobotanical study was conducted among the Occitan communities living in Blins/Bellino and Chianale, in the upper Val Varaita, in the Piedmontese Alps, North-Western Italy, and the traditional uses of 88 botanical taxa were recorded. Comparisons with and analysis of other ethnobotanical studies previously carried out in other Piemontese and surrounding areas, show that approximately one fourth of the botanical taxa quoted in this survey are also known in other surrounding Occitan valleys. It is also evident that traditional knowledge in the Varaita valley has been heavily eroded. This study also examined the local legal framework for the gathering of botanical taxa, and the potential utilization of the most quoted medicinal and food wild herbs in the local market, and suggests that the continuing widespread local collection from the wild of the aerial parts of Alpine wormwood for preparing liqueurs (Artemisia genipi, A. glacialis, and A. umbelliformis) should be seriously reconsidered in terms of sustainability, given the limited availability of these species, even though their collection is culturally salient in the entire study area.

Plants, people and traditions: ethnobotanical survey in the Lombard Stelvio National Park and neighbouring areas (Central Alps, Italy)

“…Four species, Chelidonium majus, Pinus mugo, Hypericum perforatum and Sambucus nigra, showed only uses previously documented (Cappelletti et al, 1979(Cappelletti et al, , 1981Chiovenda-Bensi, 1955;Coassini Lokar and Poldini, 1988;Guarrera, 2006;Longhi and Scanavino, 1986;Mattalia et al, 2013;Pieroni and Giusti, 2009;Renzetti and Taiani, 1988;Vitalini et al, 2009Vitalini et al, , 2013Vogl et al, 2013). Sixteen taxa were cited also for new uses, never before provided in alpine areas (Table 5).…”

Treatment of Organic Livestock with Medicinal Plants: A Systematic Review of European Ethnoveterinary Research

“…The search terms were selected from keyword indices of major ethnomedicinal/botanical journals ( Journal of Ethnopharmacology , Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine ), matched with the Scopus search fields ‘abstract', ‘title', ‘keywords', and ‘text' (ethno* OR tradition* OR folk) AND (veterinar* OR animal OR livestock OR farm* OR sheep OR goat OR cattle OR cow OR pig OR calv* OR poultry) AND (plant OR herb* OR phyto*), and with each country of the EU, including candidate and affiliated countries (Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, United Kingdom). From this first search 8,822 titles were extracted, which were reduced to a final set of 75 publications [20,21,22,23,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,…”

The Consumption of Wild Edible Plants

“…Although biological availability is widespread, plant use and traditional knowledge are exclusive to some countries, and the cultural importance of common taxa is very different in each regional gastronomy. Numerous studies carried out by different researchers contribute to important ethnobotanical, anthropological, socioeconomic, and nutritional information about wild edible plant consumption and associated local knowledge in southern Europe (Dogan et al 2015;Ertug 2000;Ghirardini et al 2007;Guarrera & Savo 2013;Łuczaj & Dolina 2015;Pieroni & Giusti 2009;Pieroni et al 2002;Sansanelli & Tassoni 2014;Turner et al 2011).…”