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

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

Taxonomical Studies on Seseli elatum L. and Allied Species.II Essential Oil Variation among three Populations

The composition of essential oil of the three populations of Seseli elatum agg. present in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region (NE Italy) was investigated by GC-MS. Thirty one terpenes were present, and twenty three have been identified. The composition of the essential oils is quantitatively and qualitatively different in the various organs of the three populations (leaves, stems, inflorescences, fruits). The degree of chemotaxonomic similarity between the three populations has been quantified by cluster analysis

Taxonomical studies on Seseli elatum L. and allied species.II. Essential oil variation among three populations

The composition of essential oil of the three populations of Seseli elatum agg. present in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region (NE Italy) was investigated by GC-MS. Thirty one terpenes were present, and twenty three have been identified. The composition of the essential oils is quantitatively and qualitatively different in the various organs of the three populations (leaves, stems, inflorescences, fruits). The degree of chemotaxonomic similarity between the three populations has been quantified by cluster analysis