Traditional knowledge of wild edible plants on Jeju Island, Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze and record traditional knowledge of wild edible plants utilized by the indigenous people living on Jeju Island in Korea. This study reveals that 124 informants have produced 471 viable usages from the collection of 164 species, within 127 genera in 57 families. Regarding the distribution of recorded families, 12 species of Poaceae occupied 16.7% of the total use-reports. Overall, 31 kinds of plant-parts were selected as edible materials requiring 68 various preparatory methods. Fidelity levels of plants regarding preparatory methods, 55 plant species recorded a FL of 100%. The categories of preparatory methods with the highest degree of consensus from informants were all types of fermented soybean, chopped noodles, and raw (Type I). The field investigative method used semi-structured questionnaires and adopted the participatory rural appraisal method for this study and produced exceptional results in investigating and analyzing traditional wild edible plants.