Ethnobotanical study of some wild edible plants in Hujran Basin, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract

Ethnobotany is a cross-disciplinary science at the confluence of the natural sciences, social economics and ecological studies, all within political and society framework. Ethnobotanical activities are an important component in the natural resources and ecosystem services, and play a key role in the human life development. In this context, the traditional knowledge has always been transferred from generation to generation throughout the natural course of everyday life, and in most cases is not written down anywhere. The present study was carried out during seasons (spring, summer, and fall) at (2018), in order to investigate and record the local traditional knowledge about the wild plants used in the food and medicine of Erbil Hujran Basin and its surroundings, Because of that Hujran Basin locate inside the Zagros area. The site study is located to the right of the main Salahaddin-Shaqlawa road, around 40 km far from the Erbil city and surrounded by Sefin Mountain and Hujran hills. Here This study involved interviews of 68 individuals, those with, maximum possible divers age, education level and gender categories to cover the traditional knowledge of the wild edible plants uses in this Basin area. Interestingly, a wide variety of plant species (87), belong to genera (67), families (25), used as wild edibles in Hujran area. The most dominant plant families were Fabaceae (13 taxa), Asteraceae (12 taxa), Brassicaceae and Rosaceae 10 taxa). For all these wild edible plant species, we have provided there scientific and local names, frequency occurrences, part used, purposes use. Of these total plant species, 66 were herbaceous species while only 12 and 9 were shrubs and trees, respectively. Overall, these wild edible plants were harvested according to different part uses and stages (seedling stage, leaves, shoot, fruit, flowers, bulbs, gum). The most striking result to emerge from the data is that the wild edible plants were found to be used for various purposes (Dolma, spice, salad, boiled and fried with egg, jam, eaten raw, etc.). The findings of this research study have important implications for developing a global biological conservation strategy to preserve simultaneously the remarkable biodiversity and ethnobotanical heritages of the Kurdistan Region known by its high multicultural and multiethnic communities.

Keywords

• ecosystem services; biodiversity conservation; natural resources; traditional knowledge; natural heritage.