OPTIMA Newsletter 38

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Publications – ultimately based on the model of traditional food intake in rural Crete – has long been popular in global dietology. With olive oil, red wine and a low animal protein ratio at its core, this diet is supposed to diminish the risk of, in particular, cancer and coronary disease. Here we are told why it is useful to look in more detail into the actual diet of traditional Mediterranean communities before one starts to generalise. That diet is just as multiform as are Mediterranean cultures and biota. Sticking (as the book does) to the botanical aspects, one finds that no less than 2300 different plant species are consumed by Mediterranean people, and that about half of them (not necessarily endemic) are only used locally, within one particular region of the Mediterranean area. These are the “local food plants” mentioned in the title. The book consists of 8 chapters with varying authorship. In its first half it draws attention to Mediterranean food variety and to the importance of exploring traditional local plant foods (and cooking recipes) as long as they are still used, or better, to promote survival of their use on a sustainable basis. The assessment of beneficial properties of such foods and identification of the bioactive compounds are aspects dealt with in the second half. Whether and when we will end up with engineering new health food by adding “nutraceuticals” designed on the basis of such analyses, the future will tell. Personally, I am far more attracted by the idea of trying out the original stuff, if possible in its genuine environment and prepared by what Italians know as “la cucina della mamma”, than by the prospect of making our tinned or deep-frozen industrial products more healthy. W.G. 103. 102BDiego RIVERA, Alonso VERDE, José FAJARDO, C. INOCENCIO, Concepción OBÓN & Michael HEINRICH (ed.) – Guía etnobotánica de los alimentos locales recolectados en la provincia de Albacete. [Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses “Don Juan Manuel”, Ser. 1, Estudios, 167.] – Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses “Don Juan Manuel”, Albacete, 2006 (ISBN 84-95394-92-8). 470 pages, numerous colour photographs, some figures, 2 tables; laminated cover. From theory to practice. The concepts and statistical data outlined in the previous item (No. 102) have been elaborated in depth in a series of regional inventories, in the frame of the EU-funded project “Local Food [&] Nutraceuticals”. The regions selected for study, in all of which local traditions subsist fairly intact, are situated in Greece (Crete and Epirus), Italy (Lucania and S Calabria), and Spain (Albacete Province, Sierra de Alcaraz and Serranía de Cuenca). The results obtained in the Spanish project area are reported in the present book. For its larger part, it consists of an inventory of local food plants, followed by 188 traditional cooking recipes (the latter bilingual, in Spanish and English). For Spain, 173 local food plants were identified, of which 100 are presented in detail, with colour photographs detailed descriptions of the plants and their uses. These plant portraits are grouped by the parts being used, then alphabetically by vernacular designations; for instance, the first category (shoots used as vegetables) begins with acederas (Rumex acetosa, here misnamed R. acetosella) and ends with zarzamora (Rubus ulmifolius, of which also the fruits are eaten). Of the plants sampled in Spain, 66 were used for pharmacological assays, some of which are mentioned in brief (bilingual) chapters at the end. Among the properties evaluated are anti-inflammatory, vasoprotective, antioxidant, neuroprotective and antidiabetic. However, concrete results of these assays are not presented in any detail. W.G. 104. 103BMarc MOLL MARQUES – Les plantes a Menorca. Noms i usos. [Col·lecció Recerca, 10.] – Institut Menorquí d’Es- (54) OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 2009
tudis, Menorca, 2005 (ISBN 84-95718- 28-6). 341 pages, drawings; paper. This is an inventory of popular names and uses of plants on the Balearic Island of Minorca, resulting from its author’s own, extensive studies. It covers wild and cultivated plants alike, and indeed the exotics are a clear majority. The emphasis is linguistic. This is reflected by the alphabetic arrangement of entries by (preferred) vernacular designations and by the mention of a great number of local variants or alternatives. Standard Catalan names, often significantly different from the local ones, are also given, and even some Spanish “barbarisms” [sic!]. On the other hand, scant attention has been paid to scientific names, several of which are incorrect or obsolete. As, in the absence of voucher specimens, plant determination cannot be verified, their stated identity should be taken cum grano salis, same as the reported pharmaceutical properties. The author’s merit is to have assembled and saved from possible oblivion a wealth of popular plant lore. W.G. 105. 104BĖstella A. NAZAROVA (ed.) – Pšenica i ee dikie sorodiči v Armenii. Wheat and its wild relatives in Armenia – Institut Botaniki Nacional’noj Akademii Nauk RA, Erevan, s.d. [c. 2003]. [16] pages, illustrations (photographs and map) in colour; stapled. This is a well produced if unpretentious trilingual (Armenian, Russian and English) information leaflet, with texts written by P. A. Ghandilan and photographs taken by V. A. Manakyan. It deals with Armenia’s most prominent natural asset. That country considers itself the cradle of wheat, where three of the four known ancestral Triticum species (T. boeoticum, T. urartu and T. araraticum) coexist with other progenitors of bread wheat, now placed in the genera Aegilops and Amblyopyrum, and with wild primitive bread wheat itself. Conservation of this aboriginal Publications stock, of great importance for research and breeding purposes, is of essence. W.G. Conservation Topics 106. 105Bertrand de MONTMOLLIN & Wendy STRAHM (ed.) – The top 50 Mediterranean island plants. Wild plants at the brink of extinction, and what is needed to save them. – IUCN/SSC Mediterranean Islands Plant Specialist Group, Gland & Cambridge, 2005 (ISBN 2-8317-0832-X). x + 109 pages, colour photographs, maps; paper. The IUCN/SSC Mediterranean Islands Plant Specialist Group has pioneered in producing the first (and hitherto only) booklet of the planned “Top 50” Plants Campaign. It consists of detailed, illustrated fact sheets for 50 threatened, endemic species of a dozen Mediterranean islands or island groups, selected by criteria of high risk, special interest as well as geographical and taxonomic representativity. The choice was well operated, the facts presented are scientifically sound, detailed and up-to-date. All in all, this is a commendable book, well suited to spread a message of urgency among its readers. One must never forget, though, that it illustrates but a fraction of Mediterranean island plants that are presently at risk. By number of species treated, Sicily (9, including the single fungus: Pleurotus nebrodensis) comes on top, followed by the Balearic Islands (8) and Cyprus (7). Crete, with merely 4 species, is clearly underrepresented. Of special note are the endemic genera: Cremnophyton (Malta), Horstrissea (Crete), Naufraga (Majorca), and Petagnaea (Sicily). Generic endemism on Mediterranean islands is not limited to those four: others, such as Corsardinian Castroviejoa and Cretan Petromarula, have not been selected. Femeniasia, here accepted, was formerly misplaced in Centaurea but has 2009 OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 (55)
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OPTIMA Newsletter 38

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