Etnobotany of the Catalan Countries’ website: traditional knowledge to the people

Abstract

We present in this work the ‘Ethnobotany of the Catalan Countries’ website (https://etnobotanica.iec.cat), an interactive tool to rediscover plant-related traditional knowledge. At the time of released, the website contains almost 80,000 entries with plant names and 55,000 with medicinal uses, and work is underway to introduce, in the next two years, about 30,000 entries for food uses and about 30,000 more for other uses and other information. These data come from more than 1300 interviews with almost 2000 informants from ca. 500 municipalities in the Catalan language domain. The Catalan-language territories are at least among the best ethnobotanically-prospected areas in southern Europe, and there is still ongoing research. The information considered to date has originated around one hundred works, a list of which is available in the website itself. Regarding popular names, the most diverse taxa are Zea mays, Achillea millefolium, Cynara cardunculus, Hypericum perforatum and Ceterach officinarum. In terms of medicinal uses —the only ones currently listed—, the most reported taxa are Thymus vulgaris, Sambucus nigra, Olea europaea subsp. europaea var. europaea, Matricaria recutita and Rosmarinus officinalis. This website is a good tool to feed back to society knowledge about its natural and cultural heritage, while preserving it and making it available for the new generations. In addition, this work will allow researchers to detect gaps in ethnofloristic research, to carry out meta-analyses (rarely conducted in ethnobotany) and to provide information to public and private stakeholders interested in developing commercial plant-based products.