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Ethnobotanical and cultural significance of Chaerophyllum bulbosum in the Carpathian Basin
141–159Views:408Tuberous-rooted chervil (Chaerophyllum bulbosum) is one of the iconic plants in the Carpathian basin regarding ethnobotany. It is considered native to this region and it is known by about one hundred different Hungarian folk names and allophones. We have plenty of historical data about its gathering from the wild from the end of the 16th century, but certainly, it could have been collected much earlier by the people who lived here. In the whole Carpathian basin, mostly its tubers (and rarely the leaves as well) were gathered mainly by children, which were eaten in various forms and dishes, but most frequently raw as salad. Its popularity started to decline by the end of the 19th century, and in the middle of the 20th century, it was regarded as one of the ‘beets out of fashion’, which was slowly disappearing from the diet. From the 21st century, there is only one record about its gathering and consumption from Transylvania. In former times, along with other Chaerophyllum and Anthriscus species it was recommended to cure scorbute and diarrhoea and as a poultice for ulcers. In the Middle Ages, it was cultivated throughout Eastern and Central Europe, which could have also been true for the Carpathian Basin. Master Roger mentioned this species among the plants of devastated peasant gardens (1243, after the Mongol invasion). Thereafter, we have records only from the middle of the 19th century showing the obvious growing of its cultivated variety (called ‘chervil-beet’). However, its cultivation remained quite sporadic, and by the middle of the 20th century, it was already fully neglected. The plant occurred in Hungarian cookery books from the 16th century, especially in Transylvanian gastronomy. The remembrance of its former folk uses retained in Hungarian culture as well, it emerges in several poems and prose.
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Flora of Sztána and Zsobok villages (Transsylvania, Apuseni Mountains, Kalotaszeg)
114-132Views:359The botanical and ethnobotanical studies of PÉNTEK & SZABÓ (1985) were repeated after 30 years, during an ethnobiological summer school held in Kalotaszeg region (Romania), in Apuseni Mountains. However, our intensive floristical researches focused only on two villages (Sztána and Zsobok). A list of the observed taxa and their frequency values are presented. Of the 747 taxa 52 are new to the narrow region. 74 species reported formerly from here were not found by us. The disappearance of some taxa (e.g. Crepis praemorsa, Conringia orientalis, Lolium temulentum) are probably due to changes in agricultural land use methods. The spread of a few new invasive species (e.g. Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Galinsoga ciliata, Senecio vernalis) as well as the presence of some floristically interesting species (e.g. Centaurium pulchellum, Carex otrubae, C. serotina, Lathyrus pannonicus subsp. collinus, Leucanthemum irrcutianum, Minuartia viscosa, Peucedanum rochelianum, Quercus pubescens, Trifolium diffusum, T. micranthum) and a notomorpha (Cirsium × tataricum) were also noticed.
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Hungarian folk names of plants collected by Lajos Timár in the 1940s and 1950s
156-172Views:146This article presents Lajos Timár’s manuscript written in the 1950s. The original 24-page script includes folk names of plants collected by the author and his colleagues from the region along the river Tisza between Szolnok and Szeged (or Horgos) villages. Lajos Timár practised his collecting work in the 1940s and 1950s. He completed his list with previously published folk names coming from the area. The manuscript consists of 508 folk names of plants. This is the first time that the entire study appears in print. The article surveys the afterlife of the script as well.