Ethnobotanical research in Cava de’ Tirreni area, Southern Italy

BACKGROUND: To best of our knowledge, this is the first quantitative ethnobotanical study with the aim of documenting the local knowledge and practices of using plants for curing diseases in the Cava de’ Tirreni area, Salerno Province, Campania Region, Italy. The present ethnobotanical field study, carried out during 2016–2017, documents the local uses of 119 plant species for medicinal, food and domestic purposes. METHODS: Ethnobotanical data were documented from 70 informants: field data were collected and information on the uses of plants was gathered through semi-structured and structured interviews with persons who still retain traditional ethnobotanical knowledge. Documented data were evaluated using the quantitative ethnobotanical index of use value (UV). RESULTS: Overall, the informants native of the area were interviewed and 277 use-reports have been recorded. The scientific names, local names, plant part used, preparation and administration processes are reported and compared with practices in other Southern Italian regions. In total, 101 species are documented as medicinal, 36 as food or food aromatizer, 29 for domestic and handicraft uses, 10 in veterinary medicine. More or less 64% of all species have more uses and over half of the food plants (23 species) are also used for medicinal purposes. CONCLUSIONS: The comparison of the documented species and their uses with ethnobotanical literature of other Italian regions reveals that the traditional plant knowledge in this area shows strong similarities with adjacent Southern Italian areas. Some of the recorded species and administration processes however seem to be unique for the zone.