Ethnobotany of Eastern Europe: The Carpathian Region Valentyna Minarchenko and Roman Lysiuk Introduction The Carpathians are the second largest mountain range in Europe and provide multiple ecosystem services of regional significance (Kholiavchuk et al. 2024). The Carpathian Mountains region lies over parts of the territories of seven Central and Southeastern European countries, and the mountain chain causes main alterations in the temperate climate specific to the latitudes between 43  and 49  N (Cheval et al. 2014). The Carpathians at their highest altitude are only of the similar height as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climatic conditions, and biodiversity. The flora of the Carpathian Mountains and lowlands is rich, containing over 6000 described native species; with introduced and invading flora, it counts more than 7500 species (Bojnansky and Fargasova 2007). At least 3808 vascular plant species and subspecies, represented by flowering plants, coni- fers, and ferns, compose the native flora of the Carpathian Floristic Subprovince (Tasenkevich 1998). V. Minarchenko Department of Pharmacognosy and Botany, Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine Department of Systematics and Floristics of Vascular Plants, M. G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, Kyiv, Ukraine e-mail: pharmbotany@gmail.com R. Lysiuk (*) Department of Pharmacognosy and Botany, Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, Lviv, Ukraine e-mail: pharmacognosy.org.ua@ukr.net © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 R. W. Bussmann et al. (eds.), Ethnobotany of the Mountain Regions of Eastern Europe, Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98744-2_1-1 1