A century of changes in wild food plant use in coastal Croatia: the example of Krk and Poljica

Katija Dolina1, Marija Jug-Dujaković2, Łukasz Łuczaj3*, Ivana Vitasović-Kosić4 1 Botanical Garden on the island of Lokrum, Institute for Marine and Coastal Research, University of Dubrovnik, Kneza Damjana Jude 12, P.O. Box 83, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia 2 Institute for Adriatic Crops and Karst Reclamation, Put Duilova 11, 21000 Split, Croatia 3 Department of Botany, Institute of Applied Biotechnology and Basic Sciences, University of Rzeszów, Werynia 502, 36-100 Kolbuszowa, Poland 4 Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Svetošimunska cesta 25, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia


Introduction
Due to the increasing availability of agricultural crops, the knowledge and use of wild edible plants has been decreasing in Europe and on a worldwide scale [1,2].One of the domains where this change is most profound is the use of wild greens.They were used in the majority of human populations, especially in times of food scarcity, but nowadays their consumption survives mainly in regions where they are regarded as healthy food [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].One of the areas where the use of non-cultivated vegetables is still relatively common is the Mediterranean part of Europe.It is sometimes even said that eating wild greens is a "hidden" part of the Mediterranean diet [11,12].However, even there this use is declining [10,[12][13][14][15][16][17].The decrease in the usage of other categories of wild foods in the Mediterranean is probably less profound (e.g., [15,18]).
A striking feature of the wild vegetable mixes found in the Mediterranean part of Europe is the use of the leaves of numerous species regarded in other countries as toxic or having a "strong taste", often with medicinal properties.Thus, recording of the use of wild vegetables is important also from the toxicological point of view.This is also the case in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where among the wild vegetables consumed, some had not been reported as edible before [15,16].
The worrying changes in traditional knowledge urge us to document the remaining scraps of this heritage.However, it is very rare to be able to measure such transformations, due to the lack of older ethnobotanical studies.In Central Europe, the nineteenth-and early twentieth-century use of plants by peasants, both for food and medicine, was well studied (e.g., [6,[19][20][21][22]). On the other hand, in the south of Europe fewer such studies were made [23][24][25].A notable exception to this is Croatia, with interesting ethnobotanical data published at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Wild food and medicinal plant use in selected areas of Croatia were documented in several studies [13,16,[34][35][36].All these studies show that the use of wild vegetables in coastal Croatia has been widespread and is to some degree practiced today.Łuczaj and Dolina made a comparison between wild vegetables listed in an old ethnographic paper from 1913 and the current use in the neighboring part of Bosnia-Herzegovina [15].It showed that over half of the wild vegetables used previously are still used.The aim of our study was to make a similar comparison for coastal areas in Croatia.We were inspired by information on plant uses in the early twentieth century, published following a call [37] made in 1897 by Antun Radić.He asked ethnographers to collect ethnographic data on the local life of Croatian peasants, including plant usages.In the following years, several monographs were produced which depicted rural life.Only two of these reports concern coastal Croatia: Vrbnik on the island of Krk (Kvarner Archipelago, northern Adriatic) and the region of Poljica in central Dalmatia (southern Croatia).
The use of plants on the island of Krk was described by Ivan Žic in 1900 [38] in one of the parts of the monograph of the town of Vrbnik [38][39][40][41][42] (Tab.1).
The aim of the study was to compare wild food plant use (with special reference to wild vegetables) nowadays to the uses reported in the archival materials from the turn of the twentieth century.

Study site in Krk
Krk is the second largest island of the Kvarner Archipelago in northern Adriatic Sea (Fig. 1, Fig. 2).It has an area of 428 km 2 .Since 1980 it has been connected to the mainland by a 1.4-km bridge, which makes it easily accessible from the nearby city of Rijeka.Žic's paper concerns the parish of Vrbnik, which comprised the little fortified coastal town of Vrbnik and two villages: Risika and Garica.
Krk is a part of the Liburnian Karst Area.The island is now strongly overgrown by secondary forest dominated by Quercus pubescens, Carpinus orientalis, and Fraxinus ornus.In the past (pre-World War II) most of the island territory was grassland.The potential natural vegetation of most of the area is sub-Mediterranean Quercus pubescens forest, but some evergreen Q. ilex forests also exist [49].
Krk is located in the temperate Mediterranean climate zone.The average annual temperature is 14°C and the average annual amount of precipitation is about 1100 mm.Precipitation is not evenly distributed -the most rainfall occurs in fall, and summer is a drought period [50].
Arable land and meadows occupy 4339 ha (33.3% of total agricultural land, and 13% of the land surface), and predominantly karst pastures of low quality cover 9795 ha (66.7%) [50].Most of the pasture land is undergoing further succession to woodlands.
In 2011, a total of 19 383 inhabitants lived on the island, with the largest number (3730) in the town of Krk.The town of Vrbnik had 1260 inhabitants [51].

Study site in Poljica
The territory of Poljica (ca.250 km 2 ) occupies an area south of the city of Split, between the rivers Žrnovnica and Cetina and Adriatic Sea (Fig. 1, Fig. 3) [52].According to the population census of 2011 [51]  The climate is Mediterranean.The average annual amount of precipitation in the narrow strip next to the sea is 1000-1250 mm.Further inland, it grows (1250-1500 mm) following the altitude.Average annual temperature is 12-14°C, yet close to the sea it is a few degrees higher, 14-16°C [53].
The vegetation of Poljica was represented by climax associations Fraxino orni-Quercetum ilicis, Querco pubescenti-Carpinetum orientalis and their degradation stages [54].Nowadays, there is progressive succession of vegetation due to the abandonment of pastures.
For centuries, Poljica has had a specific independent selfgovernment, although it has never been fully independent administratively [55].
In both places, the majority of the population of these areas is Croatian (Roman-Catholic), although people from many countries (mainly Slovenians) buy summer houses on Krk.However, in this study only Croatian people who were born in the study area and/or spent most of their lives there were interviewed.Participants were approached outside, during their farm work, or were selected based on their recommendation as the most knowledgeable people in the village.
In Poljica, 67 interviews were conducted.This included 58 single informants and nine interviews with two or three people (altogether 77 people: 51 women,   26 men).The mean age of informants was 67, and the median 66, with the oldest informant aged 89, and the youngest 37.
On Krk, we obtained data from 55 interviews involving 47 single informants, and eight interviews involving two or three people.Altogether, 65 people took part in the study in Krk: 31 women and 34 men.The mean age of informants was 67, and the median 68, with the oldest informant aged 90, and the youngest 24.
The participants were asked their age, place of origin, and habitation.Then, they were asked the following questions: 1 Voucher specimens were collected and deposited in the herbarium of the Faculty of Biology of Warsaw University (WA) -for Poljica and in the herbarium of the Faculty of Agriculture of Zagreb University (ZAGR) -for Krk.Plant names used follow The Plant List [58]; fungi names follow Species Fungorum [59].
The division between wild and domesticated species is often blurred [1,18].Several taxa (mainly fruits and aromatic herbs) listed by the informants occur both in the wild and domesticated state.We included them in the species list if we observed wild or feral populations of these species in the study area.

Krk
Out of 34 plant names mentioned by Žic for Krk, 28 (82%) were recognized nowadays and 26 still used (76%), although only a small proportion of these species are used more commonly (Tab.1).All the fruits mentioned by Žic are used, apart from one unidentified Fabaceae plant.Out of the identified wild vegetables, two are not used any more (Fig. 4).
Altogether, 76 species of wild food and herbal tea plants and nine mushroom taxa were recorded as used nowadays in the area (Tab.2).Among the listed species are 31 species whose wild leaves are used for raw salad or cooked dishes, 18 species with edible fruits, and 21 species whose leaves, shoots, fruits, or flowers are used for everyday herbal teas.On average, 14.6 species (median = 14) were listed per interview (maximum 32 species), including: 7.9 species of wild vegetables (median 8, maximum 16), 3.4 species of fruits (median 4, maximum 8), 1.5 species of fungi (median 1, maximum 6), and 1.8 species used for herbal teas or drinking syrups (median 1, maximum 7).

Poljica
Out of 21 plant names mentioned by Ivanišević for Poljica (Tab.3), 18 are identified.Unfortunately, four are not used.Out of the remaining 14 taxa, only half are used more commonly.
Tab. 1 Comparison of wild food taxa used on Krk and mentioned by Žic with the results of our ethnobotanical study.

Local names in 1900 -Latin names or/and descriptions given by Žic were given in square parentheses
Latin name given in this study

Frequency of food use and remarks
Wild vegetables ("grasses") Beršača Altogether, 80 species of wild food and herbal tea plants were or are used in the area (Tab.4).Among the listed species are 44 species whose wild leaves are used for raw salad or cooked dishes, 15 species with edible fruits, and 23 species whose leaves, shoots, fruits, or flowers are used for everyday herbal teas.Seven taxa of fungi were mentioned, but we could identify only four.On average, 13.2 species (median 13) were listed per interview (maximum 28 species), including: 7.1 species of wild vegetables (median 7, maximum 20), 4.2 species of fruits (median 4, maximum 10), 3.2 species used as herbal teas (median 3, maximum 10), and 0.2 species of fungi (median 0, maximum 7).

Historical changes
Most plant taxa mentioned in the old ethnographic works are still used in Krk and Poljica (Tab. 1, Tab. 3, Fig. 4), which shows the remarkable resilience of the local food gathering traditions.In Krk, 19 species of wild vegetables were reported in 1900 and are still used to some extent, two are no longer used, five have not been identified, two were mentioned by current informants as famine foods but not listed in 1900, and 10 were listed in our study but were not mentioned in 1900.All the fruits listed in 1900 in  Krk are still used and 11 new edible fruit species are reported (Fig. 4).In Poljica, mainly wild vegetables were listed in 1903.Nineteen species of wild vegetables were reported in 1903 and are still used to some extent nowadays, three are no longer used, two have not been identified, one was mentioned by current informants as famine food but not listed in 1900, and 20 were listed in our study but not mentioned in 1903 (Fig. 4).
Although the list of taxa whose use was newly recorded in the study area is longer than the list of taxa which are no longer used or whose names were forgotten, it is difficult to take this as proof of an increase in gathering activities.Quite on the contrary, most taxa are used by a small percentage of the population and the large number of taxa still recorded stems from the fact that our research must have been much more detailed and intense than the ethnographic notes given by Žic and Ivanišević.

The comparison of Krk and Poljica
Generally, the overall numbers of species used in each category, as well as the average numbers of species used per interview in both study areas are nearly identical.The only major difference is the use of mushrooms: few species are collected by a sizeable part of the population on the island of Krk, and fungi are hardly collected at all in the sparsely wooded Poljica.As far as plants are concerned, the differences are expressed by the composition of the species lists, e.g., Clematis vitalba L., Knautia integrifolia (L.) Bertol., and Crithmum maritimum L. Those species are used only in Krk, even they are common in Poljica as well.
A wild vegetable mix is still made by many elderly people in Poljica, although it usually consists of a few of the most common roadside and garden weeds.On Krk, extremely few people make mixed cooked wild vegetables any more, although many people tasted them in their childhood.It is now more common to use just one species of leafy vegetables separately (usually Urtica dioica and Sonchus spp.).In the past, wild vegetables were often cooked together with potatoes, and making such a dish is still practiced by some of the island.Asparagus-like plants (i.e., those eaten as pencil-shaped shoots coming out of the ground) are more popularly eaten than leafy vegetables.They are cooked separately and mixed with boiled eggs or fried with eggs.In both areas, wild asparagus Asparagus acutifolius is used the most, to a lesser extent black bryony Dioscorea communis.On Krk, some people still eat the shoots of Ruscus aculeatus L. (Fig. 5) and Clematis vitalba, and many more tasted them in childhood but do not gather them nowadays.No one eats the Humulus lupulus shoots mentioned by Žic anymore.In both places, Diplotaxis, Taraxacum, and Cichorium intybus are sometimes used to make salads (raw or blanched).
In both areas wild fruits are mainly eaten raw, but also made into jams and alcoholic drinks and dried for herbal teas.
Mushroom collecting is hardly practiced in Poljica (which is mainly deforested, with shrubland dominating the landscape).In Krk, about half of the respondents collect mushrooms.It should be noted that although a mushroom gathering tradition already existed in Žic's times, but it has been enhanced by the influx of summer house owners from inland Slovenia and Croatia, for whom mushroom gathering is more important.
Contrary to our expectations, we found more unusual wild food plant uses in Krk than Poljica.We regard eating Knautia integrifolia and Clematis vitalba as such, as discussed in detail in the last part of fl -flowers, flower buds, or inflorescences; l -leaves; m -mushroom's fruiting bodies; r -underground organs; wh -whole plant; s -pencil-like young shoots; f -fruits.Rakija -home-made grape liqueur to which often plant material is added as spice (fruits, leaves).
the discussion.A peculiarity of wild food cuisine in Poljica is the wide use of Bunias erucago instead of cabbage, which is cooked with red meat.Bunias erucago is highly appreciated and saved from weeding.

Comparison with other areas
The length of the whole list of wild foods (80 and 76) used in the two areas is very similar to those from other parts of coastal Croatia [13,16] and in Herzegovina [15].For example, in the study from Dubrovnik we recorded 95 wild food species (19 per informant), in southern Herzegovina 82 species (14 per informant) and in the Zadar area 55 species (12 per informant).Also the proportion of the plant list (i.e., around half the list composed of wild vegetables, and a long list of plants used for herbal "recreational" teas) is typical for the Mediterranean in contrast to Central Europe where the use of fruits and mushrooms dominates over wild vegetables (e.g., [1,6,60]).The types of dishes made are also very similar to those made in other parts of the Mediterranean, i.e., cooked leafy vegetables, raw salads, jams, liqueurs, and herbal teas dominate.
Tab. 3 The comparison of wild food taxa used in Poljica mentioned by Ivanišević with the results of our ethnobotanical study.All the species of wild vegetables (and other kinds of wild foods as well) have been used in other parts of the Mediterranean (e.g., [8,10,12,14,[16][17][18][61][62][63][64][65]).Probably the most interesting is the consumption of Knautia integrifolia in the western part of the island of Krk, whose alimentary use was only reported from Lucca, in Tuscany, Italy [66].This genus has been rarely recorded as human food before.Apart from K. integrifolia, only the use of Knautia arvensis (L.) Coult.was recorded in Italy [67,68] The tradition of eating the bitter, asparagus-like shoots of Ruscus (occasionally on Krk, rarely in Poljica) and Clematis (only on Krk) is also worth emphasizing.

Local names in 1903 -
Clematis vitalba is the only Clematis species used for food.All the species of this genus contain protoanemonine, a substance which irritates the skin and the walls of the digestive tract [69].The young shoots of C. vitalba are sometimes eaten (after boiling) in central and southern Italy [70,71].On Krk, C. vitalba is known as prava trtina ("the right Clematis") to differentiate it from Clematis flammula L. that is regarded as inedible.
Ruscus aculeatus is a species widely used in herbal medicine against hemorrhoids and to strengthen veins.It acts as a natural vasoconstrictor with anti-inflammatory properties (underground parts are usually used).Ruscus aculeatus also has the unique ability to strengthen and tone veins [72].A case of poisoning with this plant was recently described [73].Ruscus aculeatus is rarely used as food.Previously, its gastronomic use was only recorded in Italy [17] and around Dubrovnik in Dalmatia [13].Interestingly, it is also eaten by an ancient Croatian diaspora in southern Italy [74].

Conclusion
Most plant names recorded in 1900 and 1903 are still remembered, but many of them only by one or several older informants.The Croatian heritage of traditional knowledge concerning plants is in dire need of further research that will protect it from vanishing forever.

Fig. 1
Fig.1The location of the study sites in Southern Europe.

Fig. 2
Fig.2The island of Krk -distribution of the studied villages (smaller circles).

Fig. 4 13 - 1 - 1 - 6 39683 8 39709 2 39702 8 39653
Fig.4 Changes in the number of taxa used as wild vegetables at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and nowadays.

Tab. 2
Continued trn, sikavec (the former is a collective term for various spiny plants as well) l Boiled, in the past 5 -

Tab. 1 Continued Local names in 1900 -Latin names or/and descriptions given by Žic were given in square parentheses Latin name given in this study Frequency of food use and remarks
OccasionallyŠipunićini od dibjega šipuna [Rosa canina] Rosa canina L. OccasionallySingle informants mentioned similar names for Reichardia picroides (brusača) and for Scolymus hispanicus (brisača).

Latin names or/and de- scriptions given by Ivanišević were given in square parentheses Latin name given in this study Frequency of food use and remarks
Wild food plants and fungi used in