Ethnobotany of the wild edible plants gathered in Ulleung Island, South Korea

Abstract

Documentation of diversity and assessment of cultural importance of wild edible plants gathered and consumed in Ulleung Island, South Korea was conducted in this research by asking 83 key informants (average age 70) using semi-structured interview questionnaire, and utilizing quantitative ethnobotanical indices such as use value (UV) and fidelity level (FL). A total of 66 taxa in 36 families of wild food plants were recorded, 10 of which, endemic. Asteraceae and Rosaceae were the most represented families with 10 taxa for each. Leaves, young shoots and fruits were the most collected plant parts especially in spring. The plants which recorded high UVs were Allium ochotense (0.627), Aster pseudoglehnii (0.398) and Aruncus dioicus var. kamtschaticus (0.349), indicating that these plants are considered the most important by the informants. This study also recorded 29 wild edible plant taxa with 100 % FL values. Notable plants (and their preparation) with relatively high FL and use-mentions are Vitis coignetiae (89.47 %), Anthriscus sylvestris (86.67 %) and Lilium hansonii (86.67 %) which are consumed as fruit, prepared by parboiling the shoots and by steaming the bulbs, respectively. Category 5 ''Cooked'' (COO) was the most preferred mode of preparation when taken as a whole recording 49 % of the total, implying that wild edible plants play a big role in the informants' regular diet despite growing modernization in the island brought about by government-led tourism and infrastructure development programs. Some social, cultural, nutritional and ecological aspects were also discussed in this paper.

An ethnobotanical survey of wild edible plants used by the Yi people of Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China

“…In keeping with our expectations, the families Rosaceae (14 species) and Compositae (8 species) had the highest representation of species in this study, but Lamiaceae was only represented by 2 species (Table 2). The greater number of collected WEPs from these families is similar to the patterns documented elsewhere [5,22,23,62], but unlike those studies, other common families (e.g., Asparagaceae, Caprifoliaceae, Liliaceae, and Polygonaceae) were each represented by a single species in our study. This suggests that the relative abundance of a family within a particular area is not reason enough for its species to be collected for food or medicine.…”

“…The collection of tender shoots, leaves, and aboveground plant parts for food most often occur between March and June, but, as we predicted, the collection of wild edible fruits (food, snack, and spice categories) tend to be collected later in the growing season (summer and autumn). Due to the seasonal ontogeny in high-elevation Liangshan, these collection seasons are similar to those recorded elsewhere in Northern Hemisphere temperate [22] and high-elevation subtropical regions [4,5]. However, the collection of famine foods, culinary coagulants, and the most valuable medicinal plants, driven more by the interests of necessity, weather, and economics, were less closely related to the growth and reproduction characteristics of the WEPs.…”

“…It is, therefore, increasingly important to carry out systematic ethnobotanical investigations to document WEPs utilized in rural communities and by the socio-cultural groups that are dependent upon them [18]. Fortunately, in recent decades, focused studies of WEPs have proliferated worldwide, including in Africa [6,19,20], South Asia [4,21], East Asia [5,22,23], Europe [10,24], North America [17], South America [7,11], and Oceania [25]. Nevertheless, the WEPs utilized by many unique sociocultural groups in each of these diverse geographic regions remain understudied.…”

Reassessing the role of plants in society

“…Adams attributes this to 'path dependence'. Studies have recently been published into the cultural importance of wild edible plants on Ulleung Island, South Korea (Ong et al, 2015), traditional medicinal plants used by the Khattak tribe in Pakistan (Rehman et al, 2015) and medicinal attributes of the coconut tree that modern science are beginning to take advantage of (Roopan and Elango, 2015). This is not per se a bad thing and, in other contexts, the institutionalisation of certain ways of thinking is a crucial step in developing a more ecologically sympathetic body of environmental law.…”

Species richness, conservation status, and potential uses of plants in Segara Anakan Area of Sempu Island, East Java, Indonesia

“…The ethnobotany and local knowedge of indigenous peoples has been widely studied across the world in an endeavour to identify the value and uses of plants in context. Such ethnobotanical studies have been conducted in places like Brazil (de Oliveira et al 2007;Peroni et al 2008), Central America (Audet et al 2013), South Africa (Dahlberg and Trygger 2009), West Africa (Etongo et al 2016), Albanian Alps (Pieroni, 2008), Nepal (Uprety et al 2011), South Korea (Ong et al 2016), Indian Himalayas and the Slovenian Alps (Kala and Ratajc 2012), Solomon Islands (Furusawa et al 2014), Patagonia, South America (Ladio and Lozada 2004), Australia (Edwards and Heinrich 2006), Cyprus (Ciftcioglu 2015), Bolivian Amazon (Thomas 2012), the Pacific Islands (da Silva et al 2004), and in Italy (Motti et al 2009).…”