Genet Resour Crop Evol (2008) 55:479480

DOI 10.1007/s10722-008-9313-2

BOOK REVIEW

P. M. Guarrera, 2006. Usi e Tradizioni della Flora Italiana.

Medicina popolare ed etnobotanica [Use and Traditions
of the Italian Flora. Popular medicine and ethnobotany]
Aracne Editrice S.r.l., Rome, Italy, 433 pp, flexible cover, 16 colour plates,
11 thematic indexes, 355 references, ISBN 978-88-548-0964-2
Gaetano Laghetti
Published online: 4 March 2008
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

The text of this book (in Italian but with translation of

special terms in English), written for the 100th
Congress of the Italian Botanical Society, summarizes
for the first time the ethno-biodiversity of the Italian
plant traditions. The book is a synthetic review of the
Italian popular knowledge as well as a check list of the
taxa used. Italy is characterised by a huge biological
and cultural diversity, in addition its ethnobotanical
information is scattered in many and not always well
known bibliographic sources. As a matter of fact the
authors main effort was to consider all these information sources avoiding redundancies and finally
selecting only the key publications (ca. 170).
As in a dictionary, the plant species are presented
in alphabetical order according to an updated nomenclature. For each entry the popular uses are reported
using abbreviations followed by the references. The
author describes 1,512 taxa, of which 1,167 used in
human medicine, 465 in veterinary and/or as fodder,
161 as antiparasitics, 580 as food or seasoning, 137 as
cosmetics, 485 for craft uses, 80 in agriculture, 409
for rituals, 66 for games and 45 for proverbs. The
book is structured in two parts. The first part is a list
of medical terms (with a legend also in English)
regarding each taxon. Some specific chapters analyse
the different degree of ethnobotanical knowledge of
G. Laghetti (&)
Institute of Plant Genetics (IGV), C.N.R., 70126 Bari,
Italy
e-mail: gaetano.laghetti@igv.cnr.it

the Italian regions and the old and modern methodology in collecting data. In the second part, the
book provides a short comment on the uses of plants
by category and subdivides it by regions, allowing an
easy transversal comparison of how the same utilization is differently addressed across Italy. In
particular the main topics of this part are: folk
medicine (e.g. internal and external uses of plants,
therapeutic uses), veterinary science, food uses
(several recipes and various uses are described in
detail), antiparasitic uses, craft and home-made uses
(e.g. dye plants, plants for baskets, for soaps, for
fishing, ichthyotoxic plants), ritual and magic uses
(e.g. use in marriages and processions, floral carpets,
magical cures, mythological plants, plants against
evil-eye), uses in agriculture, games and proverbs.
The text concerns almost exclusively ethnobotanical data. Too specific botanical or phytochemical
information is not provided and details on the
bioactives are reported only in a few cases. The
book is enriched by 11 thematic indexes (subdivided
in use categories), by a list of endemic plants, 16
nice colour plates and a bibliography with 355
references.
The volume is an excellent instrument for the
understanding of folk therapies and of plant traditions, the knowledge and safeguarding of which is a
cultural obligation for every generation. This study
can be useful also for comparisons in international
research among officinal floras of diverse countries.
Also the important ongoing Project Seeds from the

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Past for the Future between the Italian National

Research Council and the University of Kassel
(Germany) will certainly benefit from data reported
in this book. This Project is concerning the agrobiodiversity of Italy discussing its changing during
the time, showing the typical Italian crop genetic
resources, their genetic erosion and safeguarding

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Genet Resour Crop Evol (2008) 55:479480

actions, thanks to the methodical and unbroken

annual investigations started in 1980.
In conclusion, we can consider this accurate book
a key work for any ethnobotanist studying the
Mediterranean area and, in particular, it represents
the state of the art about the great old Italian
ethnobotanical tradition.