An ethnobotanical survey of the Gollak region, Kosovo

Abstract

An ethnobotanical field study focused on traditional uses of medicinal plants, wild food plants, and mushrooms was conducted in 37 villages in the Gollak region of eastern Kosovo. Interviews with 66 elderly informants were conducted using standard ethnobotanical methods. The uses of 92 vascular plants and 6 mushrooms species belonging to 47 different families were recorded. Mainly infusions and decoctions were quoted as folk medicinal preparations and the most commonly quoted plant medicinal uses referred to diseases of the respiratory system, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Comparison of the collected data with the ethnobotanical findings of previously conducted studies in the surrounding Western Balkan areas showed that, even if more than the half of Gollak’s wild botanical genera quoted as medicines used are the same in Serbia and in Northern Albania, commonalities between the actual medicinal plant applications recorded in the present study and those reported for the other areas are extremely scarce. This may confirm the richness of the bio-cultural heritage of the Western Balkan region and the urgent need to conduct cross-cultural comparative field ethnobiological studies.