%0 Journal Article
%T An ethnobotanical survey of wild edible plants of Paphos and Larnaca countryside of Cyprus
%A Athena Della
%A Demetra Paraskeva-Hadjichambi
%A Andreas Ch Hadjichambis
%J Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
%D 2006
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1746-4269-2-34
%X The information was collected for three-year period, in the framework of the EU-funded RUBIA Project. Four hundred and thirteen interviews have been administered to 89 informants of various ages and background categories in 29 villages of Paphos site, and 8 in Larnaca site. A total of 78 species were recorded. Ethnographic data related to vernacular names, traditional tools and recipes have also been recorded. A comparison of the data collected from the two sites is undertaken. During this ethnobotanical research it was verified that wild edibles play an important role in Cyprus in rural people, however, it was realized that the transmission of folk uses of plants decreased in the last generations. The research of ethnobotany should be extended to other areas of Cyprus in order not only to preserve the traditional knowledge related to plants but to make it available to future generations as well.Even though covering only 9251 square kilometres, Cyprus is a country diverse in geography, climate, flora and fauna and rich in history and culture. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean with a climate of wet, changeable winter and hot dry summers, separated by short spring and autumn seasons of rapidly changing weather. The vegetation of Cyprus is formed by typical Mediterranean types: the coniferous forest, the maquis, the garigue and the batha vegetation, whilst more localized communities occur around salt marshes, sand dunes, stone walls and mountain streams [1-4].In Cyprus, about 2000 taxa were recorded as native or naturalized. From the native taxa, 143 were recorded as endemics [5-8]. References to the Cyprus flora and in particular to plants of economic importance go back as far as Homer. Cyprus' plants are mentioned in the works of ancient authors such as Theophrast, Dioscourides and Pliny. Among Cyprus natural vegetation, a number of aromatic, medicinal and other useful plants are being exploited in their wild form [9].The Cyprus diverse topograp
%U http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/2/1/34