Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p> National inventories of crop wild relatives (CWR) record where a wild relative occurs, but not whether anyone still gathers, manages, or discriminates it. Local knowledge of wild food plants supplies that missing attribute. We pooled four ethnobotanical datasets collected between 2024 and 2026 in three areas of Piedmont, the Chierese, the province of Cuneo, and the Monferrato, and in the Genoese area of Liguria, where the mixed wild-greens preparation known as <italic>Preboggion</italic> is still sold in the city market. Semi-structured interviews and field walks with 48 informants aged 24–89, complemented by participant observation and market surveys, yielded 63 wild taxa in 30 families. Forty-four (70%) fall within the taxon group definition of a CWR and 29 are conspecific with a cultivated plant, among them <italic>Beta vulgaris</italic> subsp. <italic>maritima</italic> (L.) Arcang., progenitor of all cultivated beets and the identity core of <italic>Preboggion</italic> , <italic>Humulus lupulus</italic> L., <italic>Corylus avellana</italic> L. and <italic>Prunus avium</italic> (L.) L.. Every taxon whose use is expanding is a CWR, and no wild-harvested plant without a cultivated counterpart is gaining ground. Only <italic>Urtica dioica</italic> L. and <italic>Taraxacum officinale</italic> F.H.Wigg. were recorded in all four areas, and just under 70% of taxa in one only. In-field transmission has collapsed almost everywhere, and three cases of incipient domestication were documented. We argue that the erosion of foraging knowledge carries a genetic resources cost distinct from its cultural one, and propose that ethnobotanical survey becomes a routine input to CWR inventories. </p>