Giovanna Bosi

Urban flora is a more and more interesting research subject, in light of the ongoing environmental change and biological homogenisation, since urban contexts are much more diversified that natural ones and, therefore, they offer much more colonisation possibilities to allochthonous species or unexpected refuges for endangered species. We have, therefore, added our own contribution by analysing the spontaneous vascular flora of 7 cities of the Emilia-Romagna Po Plain (northern Italy), one of the more culturally and economically developed areas in Europe. The global floristic list was 1305 species, spanning from 432 to 756 species in each individual city; 219 of them were constantly present in all cities examined. A notable richness in phytosociological classes (43 out of 75 known for the entire national territory) was observed. Therophytes were 35.4% of the spectrum, followed by hemicryptophytes, phanerophytes and geophytes. Eurasian and Mediterranean species dominated (average values 30 and 27%, respectively); exotic species were 26.8%, in line with the strong floristic pollution of Emilia-Romagna, with neophytes always prevailing over archaeophytes. Among neophytes, 44.8% came from the Americas and 26.2% from Asia. Some hydro-hygrophilous and halophilous species were found, owing to the presence of watercourses crossing the urban areas and coastal wetlands bordering one of the towns. The species new for the flora of Italy or Emilia-Romagna were 32, of which 24 were allochthonous. The species protected at a regional or national level were hardly present, which is normal in artificial environments. Despite the inevitable differences in exploration intensity and effort, this synthesis offers a picture of the contribution given by anthropogenic habitats to the global biological richness of the territory.

Renaissance herbaria may provide precious information on exotic plants known or even introduced in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD. In the Erbario Estense, preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Modena (northern Italy), there are 14 species considered as allochthonous neophytes or not present in the Italian flora. First, we accurately verified the taxa identification; then, we searched for the same species in the other coeval Italian Renaissance herbaria and collected the information present in the written sources of the second half of the 1500s (concerning, above all, the use of these species as medicinal plants); finally, we paid attention to their current uses in ethnobotanical tradition and their market value. For 12 taxa, we could confirm the former identification; whereas for 2, we came to a different conclusion; the comparison with other Renaissance herbaria, particularly Aldrovandi’s, greatly helped this evaluation process. The species treated here are not placed according to a precise order nor do they have particular medicinal values in common: probably, the specimens were simply added to the existing nucleus, as the species were known or were proven to be rather useful. We shall be able to gain further knowledge when it shall be possible to study all the remaining species. In any case, the Erbario Estense is an important testimony for sixteenth-century botany, that contains some of the most ancient specimens of exotic species that are of common use in large parts of the world today. Graphical

Societal Impact Statement: Agrobiodiversity is central to sustainable farming worldwide. Cultivation, conservation and reintroduction of diverse plant species, including ‘forgotten’ and ‘underutilized’ crops, contribute to global agrobiodiversity, living ecosystems and sustainable food production. Such efforts benefit from traditional and historical knowledge of crop plants' evolutionary and cultural trajectories. This review is a first attempt at systematically gauging species representativeness in studies of archaeological plant remains. Results indicate that, in addition to discipline‐specific methodological sources of bias, modern agricultural biases may replicate themselves in crop history research and influence understandings of ‘forgotten crops’. Recognizing these biases is an initial stride towards rectifying them and promoting agrobiodiversity in both research and practical applications.Summary: So‐called ‘forgotten’ or ‘orphan’ crops are an important component of strategies aimed at preserving and promoting biodiversity. Knowledge of historical cultivation, usage, and geographic and evolutionary trajectories of plants, that is, crop history research, is important for the long‐term success of such efforts. However, research biases in the crops chosen for study may present hurdles. This review attempts to systematically identify patterns in crop species representativeness within archaeology‐based crop history research. A meta‐analysis and synthesis of archaeobotanical evidence (and lack thereof) is presented for 268 species known to have been cultivated for food prior to 1492 CE from the Mediterranean region to South Asia. We identified 39 genera with known crop plants in this geographical and historical context that are currently absent from its archaeobotanical record, constituting ‘orphan’ crops of archaeobotany. In addition, a worldwide synthesis of crop species studied using geometric morphometric, archaeogenetic and stable isotope analyses of archaeological plant remains is presented, and biases in the species represented in these disciplines are discussed. Both disciplinary methodological biases and economic agenda‐based biases affecting species representativeness in crop history research are apparent. This study also highlights the limited geographic diffusion of most crops and the potential for deeper historical perspectives on how crops become marginalized and ‘forgotten’.

In order to identify new crops in the 1st millennium ce in northern Italy, a complex and diversified territory, archaeobotanical macroremains from 155 sites dating between the 2nd century bce and 12th century ce were analysed. In more than half of the sites, taxa were encountered that had never previously been recorded from the area. The new crops are about 30, mainly (~ 70%) fruit plants in the broad sense, which have a clear peak in this time period. Based on the available data, the most prominent time for the introduction of new food plants (both imports and cultivars) seems to have been the Roman Imperial period (1st–2nd century ce ), but also later, in Late Antiquity (3rd–6th century ce ) and the Middle Ages (7th–12 century ce ), there was no lack of new arrivals. Some fruit trees, such as Prunus persica (peach) and Pinus pinea (stone pine) immediately played an important role, and have continued to do so over time, as these are still grown in the area now.

The first floristic study of the historical monumental cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena (N-Italy) is presented. The research was performed in the period 2019–2022, considering only spontaneous individuals growing within the historical area (4.8 ha). A total of 266 taxa (species and subspecies) was found, of which 1 new for the flora of Italy (Malus × robusta ‘John Downie’), 2 new for the administrative region of Emilia-Romagna (Calocedrus decurrens and Salvia haematodes) and 1 new for the province of Modena (Epilobium ciliatum). Therophytes prevail (37.6%), followed by hemicryptophytes (31.6%), phanerophytes (16.2%) and geophytes (11.7%). The chorological spectrum is dominated by Eurasian species (32.0%), followed by Mediterranean (26.3%), Cosmopolitan (24.8%), Boreal (6%) and N-American (4.5%) ones. Allochthonous species are 16.5% of the list, with neophytes always prevailing over archaeophytes (28 vs. 9 species). Invasive species are 67.8% of the neophytes; on a regional scale they are 1.5% of the list. Protected species are 2.6% of the total; 3 of them are internationally protected and 2 are included in the red list of Italian flora. This study confirms the great biological richness of urban environments and the potential of historical cemeteries as a refugium for the conservation of species that have become rare, endangered or infrequent at a regional or national level, because of the heavy human impact on the territory.

The genus Brassica includes some of the most important vegetable and oil crops worldwide. Many Brassica seeds (which can show diagnostic characters useful for species identification) were recovered from two archaeological sites in northern Italy, dated from between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We tested the combined use of archaeobotanical keys, ancient DNA barcoding, and references to ancient herbarium specimens to address the issue of diagnostic uncertainty. An unequivocal conventional diagnosis was possible for much of the material recovered, with the samples dominated by five Brassica species and Sinapis. The analysis using ancient DNA was restricted to the seeds with a Brassica-type structure and deployed a variant of multiplexed tandem PCR. The quality of diagnosis strongly depended on the molecular locus used. Nevertheless, many seeds were diagnosed down to species level, in concordance with their morphological identification, using one primer set from the core barcode site (matK). The number of specimens found in the Renaissance herbaria was not high; Brassica nigra, which is of great ethnobotanical importance, was the most common taxon. Thus, the combined use of independent means of species identification is particularly important when studying the early use of closely related crops, such as Brassicaceae.

The discovery of several waterlogged plant remains in a Middle Ages context (1330–1360 AD) in Sassari (NS, Sardinia, Italy) enabled the characterisation of archaeological plum fruit stones and watermelon and grape seeds through computer image analysis. Digital seed/endocarp images were acquired by a flatbed scanner and processed and analysed by applying computerised image analysis techniques. The morphometric data were statistically elaborated using stepwise linear discriminant analysis (LDA), allowing comparisons among archaeological remains, wild populations and autochthonous cultivars. Archaeological samples of plum were compared with 21 autochthonous cultivars of Prunus domestica from Sardinia, while archaeological watermelon seeds were compared with 36 seed lots of Citrullus from Europe, Africa and Asia. Moreover, archaeological grape seeds were compared with 51 autochthonous traditional cultivars of Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera from Sardinia, 16 cultivars from Tuscany, six cultivars from Liguria, and eight cultivars from Catalonia (Spain). Archaeological plum remains showed morphological affinity with five cultivars of Sardinia. Seed features of the archaeological watermelon remains demonstrated affiliation with a proper sweet dessert watermelon, Citrullus lanatus, and similarity with some Sardinian cultivars. Regarding the archaeological remains of grape, morphometric comparisons showed a high similarity with autochthonous cultivars from Catalonia and Liguria. This study provides new information about ancient fruit cultivated and consumed during the Middle Ages in Sardinia.

Lycopus is a widespread herbaceous plant, currently part of European flora. Fossil remains of fruits (nutlets or mericarps) attributed to this genus are frequently found in European archaeological and palaeontological sites, being easily preserved in sedimentary deposits. In a worldwide context, the oldest fossils are from the early Oligocene (ca. 30 Ma) of West Siberia, but they become more common in Miocene (23.0–5.3 Ma) records, ranging from West Siberia to Central Europe. In the literature, the Oligocene and Miocene remains (plus a few Pliocene ones) were assigned to fossil-species, whereas the abundant Pliocene and Pleistocene occurrences (5–0.01 Ma) in Europe were mainly assigned to the extant species L. europaeus. The present work is conceived as the result of an ad hoc research team whose task was to revise and summarize the Italian fossil record of Lycopus, assembling palaeobotanical and archaeobotanical data. We herein report ca. 6000 Lycopus nutlets from 61 sites located in nine regions of Northern and Central Italy. Based on the available information on extant species, we detected nine morphological types of nutlets that can be used for the characterisation of fossils. Our analysis suggests that from 4 to 2.6 Ma a single taxon (L. cf. pliocenicus) with L. americanus-type of nutlets occurred in Italy. The first occurrence of the latter morphological type is from the early Oligocene of West Siberia. The available fossils mildly suggest that extant L. americanus could be the descendant of ancient Eurasian plants characterised by the L. americanus-type of nutlets, through expansion of their range to North America. Conversely, the abundant Italian records of the last 0.2 Ma, including remains from archaeological sites, are only referable to the Eurasian species L. europaeus.