Medicinal and Food Plants of Svaneti and Lechkhumi, Sakartvelo (Republic of Georgia), Caucasus

Svaneti and Racha-Lechkumi are historical provinces of Georgia, located on the south-facing macro-slope of the western part of the Greater Caucasus. Svaneti has always been one of the more accessible mountain regions of Georgia, and recently winter tourism has experienced a boom. However, surprisingly few studies on the plant use of its inhabitants exist. In this study we documented traditional plant use in Svvaneti and Racha-Lechkhumi, and hypothesized that (1) plant use knowledge in general would be higher in isolated high elevation communities, and that (2) use of home gardens would be much more restricted to lower elevation settings. Fieldwork was conducted in Svaneti and Racha July-August 2014 in 17 communities. Interviews using semi-structured questionnaires were conducted with 63 participants. We encountered 203 plant species belonging to 144 genera of 65 families being used in the research region. Of these, 99 species were exclusively wild-collected, 73 were grown in home-gardens, and 35 were both grown in home-gardens and collected in the wild. Plants and their uses mostly overlapped among the four areas within the region, with a slightly wider divergence in uses than in plants. The environmental fit analysis showed that a large degree of this variation was explained by differences among informant communities. The elevation of the informant community significantly fit the ordination in plant-space and explained a large degree of the variation in plant species reported but not in use-space. Gender was not significant in plant-space or use-space.