Boundaries Are Blurred: Wild Food Plant Knowledge Circulation across the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian Borderland.

The circulation of local ecological knowledge (LEK) is a promising avenue of research for wild plant studies. To encourage the acceptance, celebration, and appreciation of biocultural diversity, which is rapidly disappearing nowadays, we need to estimate and assess multifaceted local ecological knowledge. It has direct application for local communities in informing effective policies for improving food security and building community-specific responses to environmental and social transitions. The present study draws on data collected among two ethnic groups-Lithuanians and Poles-via 200 semi-structured in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted in 2018 and 2019 in Podlasie Voivodeship (Poland), the Vilnius Region (Lithuania), and the Hrodna Region (Belarus). We aimed to observe LEK circulation in the border area through cross-ethnic and cross-country comparisons. A total of 2812 detailed use reports of wild plants were recorded. In total, 72 wild plant taxa belonging to 33 plant families were used across the food domain. Our findings show that cross-country differences were minimal, while there was some variation between the ethnic groups selected as case studies. We emphasize the need, in future studies, to combine quantitative research with qualitative approaches in order to more thoroughly identify peculiarities of cross-border circulation as a reservoir for community food resilience and biocultural diversity.

Gaining momentum: Popularization of Epilobium angustifolium as food and recreational tea on the Eastern edge of Europe.

The local use of wild food plants represents a reservoir for the biocultural diversity of human diet and is therefore being extensively studied; yet the effects of the introduction of novel uses into specific biocultural conditions have been little researched. Rosebay willowherb Epilobium angustifolium L. has been intensively promoted in Europe since the mid-18th century. The expert recommendations did not provide any links to local uses thus raising the question of the legitimacy and diffusion of its food use in modern times. To understand if and to what extent those recommendations have influenced local uses, we compared them with the results of our ethnobotanical field study and the ethnographic literature in Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Of the 599 people interviewed, nine used E. angustifolium as a food and 59 as a recreational tea. Thirty-four of those who claimed to use E. angustifolium lived in two regions of Russia. The majority of the recorded tea uses were of recent origin, following a popular trend. Few food uses of E. angustifolium were recorded in Finland, where a trend towards culinary experimentation coincides with a general trend toward the consumption of healthy wild food; yet these uses are difficult to maintain due to the problems in recognizing the plant during its early stages of growth. The popularization of E. angustifolium as a food had more effect in times of hardship, when it was seen as a means of survival and its promotion was advocated. The translation error repeatedly appeared in botanical and later popular literature, whose authors did not clearly differentiate at that time between local uses and suggestions.