Alimurgic

Alimurgic

The term alimurgic refers to a qualification relating to edible plants that grow spontaneously in natural environments.
Alimurgia is, therefore, the science that recognizes the nutritional capacity of certain wild plants that are therefore edible and, according to a strictly productive concept, usable in times of famine or simply for health purposes.
Alimurgic plants are therefore those plants that are edible, and therefore lacking poisonous substances or in any case harmful to the body.

The term alimurgia was coined, for the first time, by the Florentine physician and naturalist Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti (1712-1783) and the term is mentioned in the treatise De Alimurgia urgentia (1767), a work that dealt with the possibility of coping with famines, resorting to the use of spontaneous products of the earth and mainly vegetables.
Currently the term alimurgico or phytoalimurgic qualifies edible plants that grow spontaneously in natural environments.
The edible (or edible) parts of a plant can be different in alimurgia: leaves, stem, buds, flowers, roots, tubers, bulbs and berries.