The Eighth International Mediterranean Symposium on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, İzmir, Türkiye, 20 - 22 Ekim 2022, ss.62
The aim of our research to make an inventory of folk remedies used in Gerze District (Sinop). For this
purpose, scientific trips were organized to the study area in May-August 2009. In the visited locations
ethnobotanical information was collected by face-to-face interviews and open and semi-structured
questionnaire. After interviews, the plants that are being used as folk medicine were collected in situ
under guidance of informants. Scientific names of the plants were determined and plant specimens were
deposited in Gazi University Faculty of Pharmacy Herbarium (GUEF). To assess the reliability of
results, ethnobotanical data was analysed through three quantitative indices: “informant consensus
factor (FIC)”, “use value (UV)” and “relative frequency of citation (RFC)”.
As a result of these interviews conducted in 18 villages with 92 people (29 women; 63 men), 65 plant
species from 42 families have been determined to be used as folk medicine in Gerze District. Rosaceae
family is the most used family in the preparation of folk remedies with 7 species. Most cited plant species
was Olea europaea L. (27 citation) and followed by Sambucus ebulus L. (24 citation), Brassica oleracea
L. (21 citation) and Urtica dioica L. (20 citation). The highest FIC value was obtained in dermatological
disorders (0.752); respiratory and musculoskeletal system disorders are other pharmacological
categories which has high FIC value (0.6860 and 0.6825, respectively). Olea europaea L. (UV: 0.293,
RFC: 0.184) and Sambucus ebulus L. (UV: 0.260, RFC: 0.239) were the species that have highest UV
and RFC values.
As a result of this study, once again it was revealed that the folk medicine knowledge is rapidly
disappearing in Gerze District as in other regions of Turkey and the necessity of conducting
ethnobotanical inventory studies in the whole country.