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Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review

Wild edible plants are an essential component of people’s diets in the Mediterranean basin. In Italy, ethnobotanical surveys have received increasing attention in the past two centuries, with some of these studies focusing on wild edible plants. In this regard, the literature in Italy lacks the cove...

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Autor principal: Motti, Riccardo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8002413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33809800
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10030563
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author Motti, Riccardo
author_facet Motti, Riccardo
author_sort Motti, Riccardo
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description Wild edible plants are an essential component of people’s diets in the Mediterranean basin. In Italy, ethnobotanical surveys have received increasing attention in the past two centuries, with some of these studies focusing on wild edible plants. In this regard, the literature in Italy lacks the coverage of some major issues focusing on plants used as herbs and spices. I searched national journals for articles on the use of wild food plants in Italy, published from 1963 to 2020. Aims of the present review were to document plant lore regarding wild herbs and spices in Italy, identify the wild plants most frequently used as spices, analyze the distribution of wild herbs and spices used at a national scale, and finally, to describe the most common phytochemical compounds present in wild plant species. Based on the 34 studies reviewed, I documented 78 wild taxa as being used in Italy as herbs or spices. The studies I included in this systematic review demonstrate that wild species used as herbs and spices enrich Italian folk cuisine and can represent an important resource for profitable, integrated local small-scale activities.
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spelling pubmed-80024132021-03-28 Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review Motti, Riccardo Plants (Basel) Review Wild edible plants are an essential component of people’s diets in the Mediterranean basin. In Italy, ethnobotanical surveys have received increasing attention in the past two centuries, with some of these studies focusing on wild edible plants. In this regard, the literature in Italy lacks the coverage of some major issues focusing on plants used as herbs and spices. I searched national journals for articles on the use of wild food plants in Italy, published from 1963 to 2020. Aims of the present review were to document plant lore regarding wild herbs and spices in Italy, identify the wild plants most frequently used as spices, analyze the distribution of wild herbs and spices used at a national scale, and finally, to describe the most common phytochemical compounds present in wild plant species. Based on the 34 studies reviewed, I documented 78 wild taxa as being used in Italy as herbs or spices. The studies I included in this systematic review demonstrate that wild species used as herbs and spices enrich Italian folk cuisine and can represent an important resource for profitable, integrated local small-scale activities. MDPI 2021-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8002413/ /pubmed/33809800 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10030563 Text en © 2021 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Review
Motti, Riccardo
Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title_full Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title_fullStr Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title_full_unstemmed Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title_short Wild Plants Used as Herbs and Spices in Italy: An Ethnobotanical Review
title_sort wild plants used as herbs and spices in italy: an ethnobotanical review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8002413/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33809800
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants10030563
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