The Importance of Being Diverse: The Idiosyncratic Ethnobotany of the Reka Albanian Diaspora in North Macedonia

Cultural diversity and biodiversity are strongly intertwined through the ways in which local human communities have understood, categorized, perceived, used nature species for centuries. Folk nomenclature uses of wild plants particular linked to specific ethno-diversities often been considered as cultural markers. In current study, thirty-one interviews with elderly villagers, ethnobotany five Albanian villages North Macedonia was recorded, these inhabited by descendants Reka Albanians, whose peculiar dialect customs subject past some linguistic, historical, ethnographic works. A few folk names utilizations commonly (such Rumex, Urtica, Tilia, Crocus, Hypericum spp.), well traditional collecting tree cambium during spring ritually adorning home doors Cornus mas Salix spp. branches on St. George’s Day, partially overlap Macedonian/Bulgarian folklore, and, a minor extent, data previously collected NE Albania South Kosovo. Nevertheless, archaic consumption Crocus corms) remain very idiosyncratic. While origin Albanians exact historical reasons their practices cannot be exactly established, showed that this group living at edge between Balkan Slavic realms has maintained its until present. Its uniqueness should valorized celebrated.