Unequal brothers – Plant and fungal use in Guria and Racha, Sakartvelo (Republic of Georgia), Caucasus

Abstract

Guria and Racha are historical provinces of Republic of Georgia, located on the South-facing macro-slope of the western part of the Greater Caucasus (Racha) and East of the Lesser Caucasus towards the Black Sea (Guria).In this study we documented traditional plant use in Guria and Racha, 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 Lechkhumi in July–August 2014, and in Guria and Racha in July-August 2016. Interviews using semi-structured questionnaires were conducted with 32 participants (10 women and 22 men), with oral prior informed consent. We encountered 338 plant species belonging to 252 genera of 101 vascular plant families, 4 undetermined species, and 20 fungal species and 15 undetermined fungi, belonging to at least 16 genera of 16 families being used in the research region. Of these 223 species were exclusively wild-collected, 110 were grown in home gardens, and 56 were both grown in gardens and collected in the wild. Plants and their uses mostly overlapped among the 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 participant communities. The elevation of the participant 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.