Traditional Uses of Plants in the Tolfa–Cerite–Manziate Area (Central Italy)
Abstract
Traditional knowledge of local plant uses is rapidly fading away, especially in rural Mediterranean areas. We carried out ethnobotanical research in 2010-2011 in order to investigate the local knowledge of wild plants in the Tolfa–Cerite–Manziate area of Italy (Latium, district of Rome). We carried out a total of 45 semi-structured interviews with farmers, herders, and fishers. Here, a simple diachronic comparison is made between the current study and a previous one conducted in some of the villages of the study area to highlight potential losses of traditional knowledge of local plants. We documented a total of 102 plant species, belonging to 48 families, along with their uses (excluding food uses). We also reported some non-plant based remedies that were primarily used in veterinary medicine. Some plant uses, especially for making handicrafts, have not been reported previously (e.g., those of Celtis australis L. Cannabaceae, Betula pendula Roth Betulaceae). Many plant uses are no longer remembered in the area, which indicates a loss of local ethnobotanical knowledge.
References
Adger, W. N., T. P. Hughes, C. Folke, S. R. Carpenter and J. Rockström. 2005. Social-Ecological Resilience to Coastal Disasters. Science 309:1036-1039.
Amici, L. 1992. Medicina Popolare della Teverina. Regione Lazio Assessorato alla Cultura, Associazione Intercomunale della Teverina per la cultura. Union Printing, Viterbo, Italy.
Angelelli, F. and S. Faramondi. 1995. Lineamenti Geologici della Regione Tolfetana. Geo Archeologia 1:11-50.
Anzalone, B. 1961. Osservazioni Fitosociologiche su Alcune Faggete Depresse del Lazio. Annali di Botanica 27:120-133.
Bernard, H. R. 1988. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology. Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
Caneva, G., A. Pieroni and P. M. Guarrera, eds. 2013. Etnobotanica. Conservazione di un Patrimonio Culturale come Risorsa per uno Sviluppo Sostenibile. Università Roma Tre (CROMA) e Centro Universitario Europeo per i Beni Culturali, Ravello. Edipuglia, Bari, Italy.
Ciccodicola, F. 1995. Pratiche di Guarigione nella Memoria Collettiva - Risultati di una Ricerca sul Campo. In Quaderni di Storia, Antropologia e Scienze del Linguaggio. Le Piante Magiche. Una Ricerca Storico-Antropologica edited by Giusti S., pp. 241-313. Domograf, Rome, Italy.
Cox, P. A. 2000. Will Tribal Knowledge Survive the Millennium? Science 287:44-45. Doi: 10.1126/science.287.5450.44.
CRA-CMA. 2012. Banca Dati Agrometeorologica Nazionale. Available at: http://cma.entecra.it/Banca_dati_agrometeo/index3.htm. Accessed on July 20, 2012.
Devoto, G. and G. Lombardi. 1977. Le Formazioni Sedimentarie ed Eruttive del Settore Tolfetano – Cerite – Manziate (Lazio Nordoccidentale). Quaderni Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 227:5-31.
di Tizio, A., Ł. J. Łuczaj, C. L. Quave, S. Redžić and A. Pieroni. 2012. Traditional Food and Herbal Uses of Wild Plants in the Ancient South-Slavic Diaspora of Mundimitar/Montemitro (Southern Italy). Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 8:21. Doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-8-21.
Di Pietro, R., M. M. Azzella and L. Facioni. 2010. The Forest Vegetation of the Tolfa – Ceriti Mountains (Northern Latium – Central Italy). Hacquetia 9:91–150. Doi: 10.2478/v10028-010-0002-2.
Fanelli, G., M. Bertarelli, P. M. Bianco, V. Caroselli, P. Cazzagon, D. D’Angeli, S. De Corso, M. De Sanctis, A. Gioia, A. Guerra, A. Serafini Sauli, A. Testi and S. Pignatti. 2007. Carta della Vegetazione della Provincia di Roma. Provincia di Roma, Rome, Italy.
Folke, C., T. Hahn, P. Olsson and J. Norberg. 2005. Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30:441-473. Doi: 10.1146/annurev.energy.30.050504.144511
Guarrera, P. M. 1994. Il Patrimonio Etnobotanico del Lazio. Assessorato alla Cultura Regione Lazio and Dipartimento Biologia Vegetale Università “La Sapienza”. Tipar, Rome, Italy.
Guarrera, P. M. 1999. Traditional Antihelmintic, Antiparasitic and Repellent Uses of Plants in Central Italy. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 68:183-192. Doi:10.1016/S0378-8741(99)00089-6.
Guarrera, P. M. 2006. Usi e Tradizioni della Flora Italiana. Medicina Popolare ed Etnobotanica. Aracne, Rome, Italy.
Guarrera, P. M., G. Forti and S. Marignoli. 2005. Ethnobotanical and Ethnomedicinal Uses of Plants in the District of Acquapendente (Latium, Central Italy). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 96:429- 444. Doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2004.09.014.
Guarrera, P. M., G. Forti, S. Marignoli and G. Gelsomini. 2004. Piante e Tradizione Popolare ad Acquapendente. Quaderni del Museo del Fiore n.2. Comune di Acquapendente, Regione Lazio, Acquapendente, Italy.
ISE. 2006. International Society of Ethnobiology Code of Ethics (with 2008 additions). Available at: www.ethnobiology.net/ethics.php. Accessed on September 10, 2014.
Johnson, L. M. and E. S. Hunn, eds. 2010. Landscape Ethnoecology: Concepts of Biotic and Physical Space. Berghahn Books, New York, USA.
Leonti, M., L. Casu, F. Sanna and L. Bonsignore. 2009. A Comparison of Medicinal Plant Use in Sardinia and Sicily—De Materia Medica Revisited? Journal of Ethnopharmacology 121:255-267. Doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2008.10.027.
Mustafa, B., A. Hajdari, F. Krasniqi, E. Hoxha, H. Ademi, C. L. Quave and A. Pieroni. 2012. Medical Ethnobotany of the Albanian Alps in Kosovo. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 8:6. Doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-8-6.
Pardo-de-Santayana, M., A. Pieroni and R. Puri. 2010. The Ethnobotany of Europe, Past and Present. In Ethnobotany in the New Europe: People, Health and Wild Plant Resources, edited by Pardo-de-Santayana, M., A. Pieroni and R. Puri, pp. 1-15. Berghahn Books, New York, USA.
Penzig, O. 1924. Flora Popolare Italiana, vol. 1-2. Tipolitografia Regio Istituto Sordomuti, Genova, Italy.
Pieroni, A., B. Rexhepi, A. Nedelcheva, A Hajdari, B. Mustafa, V. Kolosova, K. Cianfaglione and C. L. Quave. 2013. One Century Later: the Folk Botanical Knowledge of the Last Remaining Albanians of the Upper Reka Valley, Mount Korab, Western Macedonia. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 9:22. Doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-9-22.
Pignatti, S. 1982. Flora d’Italia, vol.1-3. Edagricole, Bologna, Italy.
Rosenthal, J. P. 2006. Politics, Culture, and Governance in the Development of Prior Informed Consent in Indigenous Communities. Current Anthropology 47:119–142. Doi: 10.1086/497670.
Salvati, L. and A. Sabbi. 2011. Exploring Long-Term Land Cover Changes in an Urban Region of Southern Europe. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 18:273-282. Doi: 10.1080/13504509.2011.560453.
Savo, V., E. De Zuliani, L. Salvati, L. Perini and G. Caneva. 2012. Long-Term Changes in Precipitation and Temperature Patterns and their Possible Impacts on Vegetation (Tolfa – Cerite Area, Central Italy). Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 10:243-266. Available at: http://www.ecology.uni-corvinus.hu/pdf/1003_243266.pdf. Accessed on: September 10, 2014.
Signorini, M. A., P. Bruschi, F. Camangi, P. M. Guarrera, A. Pieroni and V. Savo. 2013. Metodi della Ricerca Etnobotanica. In Etnobotanica, Conservazione di un Patrimonio Culturale Immateriale come Risorsa per uno Sviluppo Sostenibile, edited by Caneva, G, A. Pieroni and P. M. Guarrera, pp. 43-68. EdiPuglia, Bari.
Spada, F. 1977. Primi Lineamenti della Vegetazione del Comprensorio Tolfetano – Cerite. – Quaderni Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 227:33-50.
ThePlantList. 2014. A Working List of All Plant Species. Available at: www.theplantlist.org. Accessed on September 10, 2014.
Vander Poppen, R. E. 2008. Rural Change and Continuity in Etruria: A Study of Village Communities from the 7th Century BC to the 1st Century AD. ProQuest, Ann Arbor, MI.
Copyright (c) 2015 Ethnobiology Letters
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content and grant Ethnobiology Letters (the “Journal”) and the Society of Ethnobiology right of first publication. Authors and the Journal agree that Ethnobiology Letters will publish the article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
For any reuse or redistribution of a work, users must make clear the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
In publishing with Ethnobiology Letters corresponding authors certify that they are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. They warrant, on behalf of themselves and their co-authors, that the content is original, has not been formally published, is not under consideration, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights. They further warrant that the material contains no matter that is scandalous, obscene, libelous, or otherwise contrary to the law.
Corresponding authors will be given an opportunity to read and correct edited proofs, but if they fail to return such corrections by the date set by the editors, production and publication may proceed without the authors’ approval of the edited proofs.
