Abstract
Traditional ethnobotanical
knowledge concerning plant use can be attributed to the archaic folklore
system in Romania, particularly in Transylvania, which forms a
considerable part of the country. Various regions of Transylvania are
inhabited by Hungarians and Romanians. This chapter provides an overview
of the first herbal books from the sixteenth century published in
Transylvania, followed by the most significant ethnobotanical surveys
conducted in ten main regions from the 1930s to date, the results of
which were published in monographs, books and journal papers, mostly in
Hungarian. Based on traditional experiences and observations of
inhabitants, the present data inventories the local use of plants in
ethnomedicine, in construction and household tools, as food and fodder,
as well as in various beliefs and customs. The reports are of pivotal
importance in documenting the ethnomedicinal knowledge of the rural
people, underlining the significance of vernacular names, various
applications, home treatments and special local terminology of the plant
taxa in the selected areas.
Similar surveys are being
performed today, focusing on the preservation of archaic elements of
folk traditions, as well as on the study of new and promising plant taxa
for further laboratory analyses. However, traditional knowledge of
local people has clearly decreased; therefore, the conservation,
documentation and preservation of these data from disappearance are of
primary importance in the future.
