The knowledge of the food, medicinal and artisanal uses of local plants near Forcalquier has been formed since the Neolithic period between 5,800 and 2,500 years BC. It expanded with the development of agriculture and particularly pastoralism, which required advanced botany knowledge. This ancestral knowledge has been transmitted by oral tradition in Haute Provence, where men have tried to make the most of a long very poor territory and to tame a rather harsh environment.