Ethnobotanical Inventory on the Vernacular Names of Useful Plants: Data of over 120 Years for the Ligurian Region (Northern Italy).

Knowledge of vernacular plant names is fundamental for ethnobotanical research, aiding both in the identification of botanical taxa and the preservation of linguistic and ethnological heritage. This study examines the Ligurian vernacular plant names recorded in botanical publications from the late 19th century to 2020, spanning over 120 years. Beyond contributing to historical Italian ethnobotany, the aim was to describe how communities perceived and utilized plants during this long period, which saw significant socioeconomic shifts and historical events, such as the two World Wars. The main results show that the vernacular flora quotes a total of 9474 citations of dialectal names referring to 950 species, corresponding to 2120 basic vernacular names. Overall, 32.27% of wild taxa were sufficiently well-known to have a vernacular name, highlighting a good conservation of botanical knowledge for the Ligurian flora, characterized by very high biodiversity. However, a comparison between the periods before and after World War II showed a decline in the number of both cited species (30% reduction) and vernacular names recorded (14.48% reduction). These data should be viewed as merely indicative, given that they were collected using methodologies that were not always consistent across the different time periods. Nevertheless, it can be hypothesized that socioeconomic and land use changes-occurring over such a long and complex historical period-have contributed to reducing the population's reliance on wild plants, thereby diminishing knowledge regarding their vernacular names. Ultimately, our survey explored how Liguria's folk botanical knowledge has survived to this day, in an effort to provide a foundation for safeguarding this cultural heritage.