Traditional plant use in the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, Campania, Southern, Italy Riccardo Di Novella, Nicola Di Novella, Laura De Martino, Emilia Mancini, Vincenzo De Feo n Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche e Biomediche, Universit  a degli Studi di Salerno, Via Ponte don Melillo, Fisciano (SA) I-84084, Italy article info Article history: Received 31 July 2012 Received in revised form 30 October 2012 Accepted 31 October 2012 Available online 16 November 2012 Keywords: Plant traditional uses Ethnomedicine National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano abstract Aim of study: This paper reports an ethobotanical survey of the traditional uses of medicinal and useful plants in an area of the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, Campania, Southern Italy. Materials and methods: This study conducted between 2009 and 2011, gathered information on the medicinal plants traditionally used in Southern Italy (Campania Region). In all, we interviewed 70 key informants, whose age ranged between 50 and 85 years. This people belonged to families which had strong links with traditional activities of the area. Results: The research resulted to the identification of 192 plants belonging to 64 families. Among the species reported, 86 are used in human medicine, 15 in veterinary medicine, 69 as human foods, 18 as animal feed, 61 for domestic and 8 for agricultural uses. Conclusion: A survey of the available literature on Southern Italy ethnobotany reveals that some species have been never reported and about 10% of cited uses are new. Data obtained show that in the studied area the folk use of plants is alive and still derives from daily practice. & 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Humans have developed a broad knowledge about useful plants over time through the continuous contact with natural environment. The Mediterranean basin is an area which has been inhabited for millennia. Here, the humans contributed to increase the diversity of landscapes and habitats, and to make one of the 25 world wide biodiversity hot spots (Myers et al., 2000). During the development of civilizations, humans used the plants for their basic needs: feeding, clothing, sheltering, hunting and nursing. The utilization of some species is unchanged, even if these plants have felt the effects of the events during the ages: some plants have been largely used in a certain time, but at another time, the same plants have been almost forgotten or, however, their uses have been limited. For example, the use of many plants, found during feed need time (wars, epidemic diseases, famines), has been gone on till nowadays. Also the ethnoveterinary research has been the focus of several studies in the last twenty years, mainly in Africa, Asia and Central America. On the other hand, in Southern Italy, some species used in traditional veterinary practices are plants that animals consume for the self-healing of specific afflictions. Since modern western pharmaceuticals have often replaced the use of traditional veterinary medicine, more local heritage is retained with respect to practices that are more distant from the medical field and instead have to do with animal management (Pieroni et al., 2004a). The preservation of some rituals especially concerning medicinal and agricultural plants is noteworthy in this area, together with a certain degree of con- tinuously in food uses (Guarrera et al., 2006). In the Mediterranean area, several researches on plants traditionally used in different fields (human and veterinary sciences, food, minor nourishment, household and handicraft sectors) have been conducted (Vitalini et al., 2009). Very often, traditional medicine practices are used alongside academic medicine, sometimes even replacing it com- pletely (De Feo et al., 1992a). In fact, ethnobotanical studies reveal that even in some developed countries, the uses and beliefs of folk medicine have been preserved. Even if during the second half twentieth century has been registered a gradual loss in the value of plants and in the uses of plants in therapy, nevertheless, research in this field has increased. This still happens in the regions of Southern Italy because there is a considerable knowledge of medicinal and useful plants, which often does not receive the attention it deserves. The older people are the depositories of traditional knowledge that very often comes from family tradition handled down through the generations (De Feo et al., 1992a). Moreover, a comparison of traditional medicinal plant uses shows that their knowledge may lead to the development of new phytochemicals (Leporatti and Ivancheva, 2003). In this work, we studied local ethnobotanical uses (for medicinal, veterinary, domestic, food and feed purposes) of wild and cultivated Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep Journal of Ethnopharmacology 0378-8741/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2012.10.065 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ39 89 969751; fax: þ39 89 969602. E-mail address: defeo@unisa.it (V. De Feo). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 145 (2013) 328–342