We need to appreciate common synanthropic plants before they become rare: Case study in Latgale (Latvia)

Local ecological knowledge holds great potential in contributing to sustainable resource management and conservation activities. For this reason, the authors choose to analyse an ethnobotanical dataset from the Baltic Sea region by exploring the relationship between plants and humans on the basis of three main categories: habitat characteristics, distribution in the wild and plant sensitivity to human impact beyond physical distance. The study provides empirical evidence of widespread usage of so called common species which are widely distributed in the territory and benet from human activity. When considering the data via the intensity of use, based on detailed use-reports (DUR), the main category is shown to be apophytes (1001 DUR), followed by anthropophytes (426), hemeradiophores (255) and hemerophobes (54). The authors highlight the co-dependency of plants and humans in the medicinal and wild food domains and stress the need for integrated management strategies where local community knowledge plays a part

Medicinal plant use at the beginning of the 21st century among the religious minority in Latgale region, Latvia

Background: As identified by scholars, even when communities co-habit the same natural environment, there may be visible differences due to cultural factors, and thus local knowledge on medicinal plants evolves along with the culture. This paper addresses the complexity of medicinal plant use across different social groups situated in the same natural environment with a focus on a distinct religious minority: Old Believers. Methods: This paper covers ethnobotanical data from 27 villages and populated areas in Dagda Municipality of Latgale, Latvia. The region is highly diverse, especially in terms of language and ethnic groups. In total, seventy-three interviewees were interviewed, of which nineteen represented Old Believers. Results: The number of used taxa among Old Believers (40 taxa) was half of that used by the other local community members such as Latgalians (81) and the multi-ethnic group (77). Because of the scarcity of available materials on plant uses by Old Believers, we speculate that religious characteristics such as self-isolation from other cultures might be one of the reasons for such a difference. On the other hand, historical aspects such as migration and the subsequent need for adaptation to the local flora could also partly explain the low number of medicinal taxa in comparison to the other groups. Conclusions: The study indicates that self-isolation, being a characteristic of Old Believers, potentially plays a role in medicinal plant use. We recommend further research to study in detail aspects of medicinal plant use in self-isolated communities within highly literate societies

Inventing a herbal tradition: The complex roots of the current popularity of Epilobium angustifolium in Eastern Europe

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Currently various scientific and popular sources provide a wide spectrum of ethnopharmacological information on many plants, yet the sources of that information, as well as the information itself, are often not clear, potentially resulting in the erroneous use of plants among lay people or even in official medicine. Our field studies in seven countries on the Eastern edge of Europe have revealed an unusual increase in the medicinal use of Epilobium angustifolium L., especially in Estonia, where the majority of uses were specifically related to “men's problems”. The aim of the current work is: to understand the recent and sudden increase in the interest in the use of E. angustifolium in Estonia; to evaluate the extent of documented traditional use of E. angustifolium among sources of knowledge considered traditional; to track different sources describing (or attributed as describing) the benefits of E. angustifolium; and to detect direct and indirect influences of the written sources on the currently documented local uses of E. angustifolium on the Eastern edge of Europe. Materials and methods: In this study we used a variety of methods: semi-structured interviews with 599 people in 7 countries, historical data analysis and historical ethnopharmacological source analysis. We researched historical and archival sources, and academic and popular literature published on the medicinal use of E. angustifolium in the regions of our field sites as well as internationally, paying close attention to the literature that might have directly or indirectly contributed to the popularity of E. angustifolium at different times in history. Results: Our results show that the sudden and recent popularity in the medical use of E. angustifolium in Estonia has been caused by local popular authors with academic medical backgrounds, relying simultaneously on “western” and Russian sources. While Russian sources have propagated (partially unpublished) results from the 1930s, “western” sources are scientific insights derived from the popularization of other Epilobium species by Austrian herbalist Maria Treben. The information Treben disseminated could have been originated from a previous peak in popularity of E. angustifolium in USA in the second half of the 19th century, caused in turn by misinterpretation of ancient herbals. The traditional uses of E. angustifolium were related to wounds and skin diseases, fever, pain (headache, sore throat, childbirth), and abdominal-related problems (constipation, stomach ache) and intestinal bleeding. Few more uses were based on the similarity principle. The main theme, however, is the fragmentation of use and its lack of consistency apart from wounds and skin diseases. Conclusions: Historical ethnobotanical investigations could help to avoid creating repeating waves of popularity of plants that have already been tried for certain diseases and later abandoned as not fully effective. There is, of course, a chance that E. angustifolium could also finally be proven to be clinically safe and cost-effective for treating benign prostatic hyperplasia, but this has not yet happened despite recent intensive research. Documented traditional use would suggest investigating the dermatological, intestinal anti-hemorrhagic and pain inhibiting properties of this plant, if any

Ethnobtany for promoting the cultural understanding of a 5 – 6 year old children in preschool

Darba teorētiskajā daļā tiek analizēti tradicionālo un lokālo ekoloģisko zināšanu un etnobotānikas jēdzieni, to mijsakarības ar kultūras izpratni, Tiek sniegts 5-6 gadīgu bērnu psiholoģiskais un fiziskais raksturojums pētāmās problēmas aspektā, raksturojot etnobotānikas zināšanu apguves īpatnības bērna vecumā tradicionālajās kultūrās un mūsdienās. Analizēti pieejamie etnobotānikas zināšanu avoti, to skaitā – mūsdienu lauka pētījumi un to izmantošanas iespējas pirmsskolas mācību procesā, akcentējot divas savvaļas augu sugas. Darba praktiskajā daļā, pamatojoties uz apgūto teoriju, veikts empīrisks pētījums par etnobotānikas zināšanu izmantošanu bērnu kultūras izpratnes sekmēšanai. Pētījuma rezultātā konstatēts, ka ir uzlabojusies bērnu izpratne par mācību procesā iekļautajiem augiem un to pielietojumu tradicionālajā kultūrā, tādējādi veicinot kultūras izpratni.The theoretical part of the work analyzes the concepts of traditional and local ecological knowledge and ethnobotany, their interrelationships with cultural understanding. The psychological and physical characteristics of 5-6-year-old children are presented in the aspect of the researched problem, characterizing the peculiarities of acquiring knowledge of the ethnobotany at a child's age in traditional cultures and nowadays. The available sources of the ethnobotanical knowledge are analyzed, including modern field studies and the possibilities of their use in the preschool learning process, emphasizing two wild plant species. In the practical part of the work, based on the learned theory, an empirical study was conducted on the use of the traditional ecological knowledge to promote children's cultural understanding. As a result of the research, it was found that the children's understanding of the plants and their use in traditional culture has improved, thus promoting cultural understanding

Diverse in Local, Overlapping in Official Medical Botany: Critical Analysis of Medicinal Plant Records from the Historic Regions of Livonia and Courland in Northeast Europe, 1829–1895

Works on historical ethnobotany can help shed light on past plant uses and humankind’s relationships with the environment. We analyzed medicinal plant uses from the historical regions of Livonia and Courland in Northeast Europe based on three studies published within the 19th century by medical doctors researching local ethnomedicine. The sources were manually searched, and information extracted and entered into a database. In total, there were 603 detailed reports of medicinal plant use, which refer to 219 taxa belonging to 69 families and one unidentified local taxon. Dominant families were Asteraceae (14%), Solanaceae (7%), Rosaceae (6%), and Apiaceae (5%). The majority of use reports were attributed to the treatment of four disease categories: digestive (24%), skin (22%), respiratory (11%), and general (11%). The small overlapping portion (14 taxa mentioned by all three authors and another 27 taxa named by two authors) contained a high proportion of taxa (46%) mentioned in Dioscorides, which were widespread during that period in scholarly practice. Despite the shared flora, geographical vicinity, and culturally similar backgrounds, the medicinal use of plants in historical Courland and Livonia showed high biocultural diversity and reliance on wild taxa. We encourage researchers to study and re-evaluate the historical ethnobotanical literature and provide some suggestions on how to do this effectively

Gaining momentum: Popularization of Epilobium angustifolium as food and recreational tea on the Eastern edge of Europe

The local use of wild food plants represents a reservoir for the biocultural diversity of human diet and is therefore being extensively studied; yet the effects of the introduction of novel uses into specific biocultural conditions have been little researched. Rosebay willowherb Epilobium angustifolium L. has been intensively promoted in Europe since the mid-18th century. The expert recommendations did not provide any links to local uses thus raising the question of the legitimacy and diffusion of its food use in modern times. To understand if and to what extent those recommendations have influenced local uses, we compared them with the results of our ethnobotanical field study and the ethnographic literature in Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Of the 599 people interviewed, nine used E. angustifolium as a food and 59 as a recreational tea. Thirty-four of those who claimed to use E. angustifolium lived in two regions of Russia. The majority of the recorded tea uses were of recent origin, following a popular trend. Few food uses of E. angustifolium were recorded in Finland, where a trend towards culinary experimentation coincides with a general trend toward the consumption of healthy wild food; yet these uses are difficult to maintain due to the problems in recognizing the plant during its early stages of growth. The popularization of E. angustifolium as a food had more effect in times of hardship, when it was seen as a means of survival and its promotion was advocated. The translation error repeatedly appeared in botanical and later popular literature, whose authors did not clearly differentiate at that time between local uses and suggestions