Wild-associated taxa, multifunctionality, and regional homogeneity in the ethnobotany of culinary seasoning plants in the Valencian Community (SE Spain)

Culinary seasoning plants are often presented as species inventories rather than examined as structured gastronomic repertoires. We characterised their composition, regional similarity, and factors associated with cultural salience in the Valencian Community (SE Spain). The analysis used 356 semi-structured interviews conducted between 1999 and 2025, voucher-linked identification, nomenclatural verification against Plants of the World Online, and three species-level indices: relative frequency of citation (RFC), cultural importance (CI), and cultural value (CV). The purposive sample comprised 130 men and 226 women, including 317 regular community informants and 39 key informants (11.0%). Knowledge was recorded when a participant could identify, name, describe, or report an application of a taxon; use was recorded only when a current, remembered, observed, or locally recognised practice or preparation was described. The inventory included 31 taxa from 17 families. Lamiaceae was the richest family (11 taxa; 35.5%), and 20 taxa were wild-associated (64.5%). The highest salience values were recorded for Salvia rosmarinus (RFC = 0.890; CI = 1.610; CV = 1.075), Thymus vulgaris (0.683; 1.570; 0.938), Laurus nobilis (0.868; 1.253; 0.544), Foeniculum vulgare (0.815; 1.244; 0.887), and Origanum vulgare (0.626; 1.171; 0.459). Provincial citation profiles were strongly correlated (r = 0.89-0.96). Use breadth was positively correlated with RFC (Spearman rho = 0.481, p = 0.0062), CI (rho = 0.579, p = 0.0006), and CV (rho = 0.716, p < 0.0001), whereas management origin was not (p >= 0.4573). Multifunctionality was therefore more closely related to cultural salience than wild/cultivated status alone.