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Abstract
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Plant foraging is a millennia-old activity still practiced by many people in the Middle East,
particularly in the Fertile Crescent region, where several socioeconomic, ecological, and cultural
factors shape this practice. This study seeks to understand the drivers of plant foraging in this
complex region characterized by highly diverse linguistic, religious, and cultural groups. Our study
aims to document the wild plants used by Kurds in Western Iran, identify similarities and differences
among Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurdish groups in Iran, and compare our findings with a previous
study on the Hawramani in Iraq. Forty-three semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted
in Kurdish villages of Western Iran. The results revealed the use of 44 wild food plant taxa, their
preparation, and culinary uses. Among the reported taxa, 28 plant taxa were used by Mukriyani, and
33 by Hawramani. The study revealed a significant difference between the Hawraman and Mukriyan
regions in Iran, whereas there is a high similarity between Hawramani Kurds in Iran and Iraq. We
found that the invisible cultural border carries more weight than political divisions, and this calls for
a paradigm shift in how we perceive and map the distribution of ethnobotanical knowledge.
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