How do young identify plants? Using the drawing method to explore early ethnobotanical knowledge in Madagascar

In small‐scale societies, people learn to identify plant species during childhood. Plant recognition is an important baseline knowledge, immediately useful to avoid intoxication risk due to wrong identification. Plant recognition is the basis of other ethnobotanical knowledge essential for safeguarding biocultural diversity. However, despite many studies on folk classification, we still have a narrow understanding of the criteria locally used for species identification; the gap being even larger regarding children's plant identification criteria. Here, we study the criteria used by Betsileo children and adolescents to identify wild edible plant (WEP) species using a child‐adapted method including drawings and follow‐up interviews. We worked with 80 teenagers (from 12 to 17 years old; 51 girls, and 29 boys). Our results suggest that teenagers use a large spectrum of visual criteria to identify plants and that these criteria match with botanical and ecological knowledge documented in the literature and herbarium vouchers. We found that 35% of the identification criteria used were non‐morphological (e.g. phenology, biotic interactions), suggesting deep ecological knowledge. On average, teenagers use more than nine distinct criteria per plant, which allows them to identify most plant species with a very high level of precision. The precision level of plant representation increases with age for boys, but remains constant for girls, suggesting different dynamics in plant identification knowledge acquisition. We also found that boys and girls use different identification criteria: girls focus on morphological criteria while boys also incorporate ecological criteria, such as landscape features and biotic interactions, in their spectrum of identification keys. Our results highlight the complexity of teenagers' plant knowledge and the importance of the ecological context and gender in plant identification's knowledge acquisition. This knowledge acquired very early in childhood, constitutes the foundation of future interactions with nature and should be at the heart of environmental humanities studies and knowledge co‐production projects to tackle socio‐ecological concerns. Hence, we urge further research to explore innovative methods that complement traditional ethnoecological tools and capture complex sensory aspects of folk children's taxonomy to better understand human‐plant interactions and knowledge. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the