Ethnopharmacological Survey of Plants Used as Folk Remedy in Gerze (Sinop, Türkiye)

INTRODUCTION: Folk medicines used in the Gerze district of Sinop have not been previously studied in detail. In this study, based on this shortcoming, it was aimed to record and compile the folk medicines used in Gerze.
METHODS: Scientific trips were organized to 18 villages in the Gerze district and folk medicine information was obtained using open and semi-structured questionnaires. The obtained data were analysed statistically by calculating “Use Value”, “Informant Consensus Factor”, and “Relative Frequency of Citation”.
RESULTS: As a result, 63 plant species from 41 families were determined to be used as folk medicine. Plants from the Rosaceae and Asteraceae families are mostly preferred in preparing folk medicines. To the best of our knowledge, Sempervivum brevipilum Muirhead and Serapias vomeracea (Burm.f.) Briq. were recorded as folk medicine for the first time with this research. In Gerze, folk medicines are mostly used in the respiratory tract (86 citations) and dermatological system diseases (86 citations). The most cited plants were Olea europaea L. (27 citations) and Sambucus ebulus L. (23 citations).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The use of 63 different plant species in folk medicine in Gerze has been recorded to eliminate a deficiency in the Turkish folk medicine inventory and be a source for future scientific studies. However, as in other regions of Türkiye, it has once again emerged that the folk medicine knowledge is being lost in Gerze District and that ethnobotanical inventory studies should be carried out rapidly throughout the country.