Folk medicines used in the Gerze district of Sinop have not been previously studied in detail. This study aimed to record and compily the folk medicines used in Gerze (Sinop, Türkiye). In this ethnobotanical inventory study, scientific trips were organized to 18 villages in the Gerze district between May and August in 2009, and folk medicine information was obtained using open and semi-structured questionnaires. The obtained data were analysed by calculating use value", informant consensus factor, and relative frequency of citation. 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 preferred in preparing folk medicines. Sempervivum brevipilum Muirhead and Serapias vomeracea (Burm.f.) Briq. were recorded for the first time as folk medicine in this research. In Gerze, folk medicines were mostly used in the respiratory tract (86 citations), and dermatological system diseases (86 citations). However, when informant consensus factor values are considered, dermatological system disorders are ranked first (0.7529) and, followed by musculoskeletal (0.7049), respiratory (0.6941), and cardiovascular system disorders (0.5882). The most cited plants were Olea europaea L. (27 citations) and Sambucus ebulus L. (23 citations). The highest use value was calculated for O. europaea subsp. europaea (0.293), and S. ebulus (0.260). At the same time, S. ebulus took first place with an relative frequency of citation value of 0.239, O. europaea subsp. europaea (0.184) fell in second place. 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 emerged that the folk medicine knowledge was being lost in Gerze District, and that ethnobotanical inventory studies should be carried out rapidly throughout the country.
Günbatan et al. (Fri,) studied this question.