Tourism is a phenomenon that dates back to ancient times. Ancient Greek philosophers recognised, adopted, and promoted the concept of rest-based tourism. Ecotourism is a particular type of tourism that connects with activities that take place in nature, without harming it, along with the herbal and animal wealth. According to estimates, the global ecotourism industry is currently booming due to various reasons, and it is becoming an important factor of sustainable regional development. This article presents the vision, work, and outcomes of project AdVENt, a project focusing natively in sustainable ecotourism through natural science and technological innovation. AdVENt’s study area includes the National Parks of Oiti (or Oeta) and Parnassus in Central Greece, where there is a remarkable native flora with a high endemism rate integrated with areas of cultural value and national and European hiking routes and paths of varying difficulty.

Samothraki, an island of the North Aegean region of Greece, hosts a remarkable flora that includes seventeen endemics restricted to its boundaries and several species of phytogeographical importance. A floristic investigation of the upper parts of the island, on Mt. Saos, revealed populations of a reddish-purple-flowered Vincetoxicum morphologically distinct from any species known from Greece and neighboring countries. This new species, named Vincetoxicum samothracicum , is apparently related to a group of east-Mediterranean species with corona lobes free almost to the base, but it differs from all of them in the characters of the flowers, fruits, and indumentum. Investigation of an internal transcribed spacer (ITS) Vincetoxicum phylogeny did not place the new species in the same monophyletic group as its presumed morphological relatives. V. samothracicum is a local species, but it is currently assigned to the IUCN category LC.

The vascular flora of Greece comprises no less than 6,705 vascular plant taxa (species and subspecies, including established aliens) in an area of 131,957 km². The phytogeographic region of north-east Greece (NE), an area characterised by physiographic diversity, is the richest floristic region in Greece, yet it remains less-explored compared to other regions. We present an annotated inventory of 32 vascular plant taxa collected predominantly from the East Macedonia and Thrace Regions (Makedonia and Thraki, NE Greece), following fieldwork that took place between 2013 and 2021. In our results, we identify seven new additions to the Greek flora (Aethionema saxatile subsp. rhodopaeum, Anthericum ramosum, Aster amellus, Euphorbia carniolica, Hesperis matronalis subsp. matronalis, Saponaria stranjensis and Silene fetlerii) and 25 new records to the regional Greek flora consisting of mostly rare Balkan endemics of a restricted distribution and presumable conservation priorities. Taxonomic comments are added, where necessary. IUCN threat categories are assigned to certain taxa. Our investigation highlights the importance of the Balkan border areas as a source of new floristic elements for single countries and points to the importance of range-restricted taxa, in addition to single-country endemics, to address plants with a narrow distribution pattern.

Over the years, several studies have investigated the essential oils (EOs) of Salvia taxa, revealing significant chemical variability in their composition. The present study focused on the characterization of the EOs of seven Salvia taxa growing wild in Greece, namely S. aethiopis L., S. argentea L., and S. sclarea L. (Aethiopis section); S. officinalis L. subsp. officinalis and S. tomentosa Mill. (Eusphace section); S. verticillata L. subsp. verticillata (Hemisphace section); and S. amplexicaulis Lam. (Plethiosphace section). Chemometric analysis, including PCA, HCA, and a clustered heat map, were applied to identify possible relationships among the samples based on their constituents, chemical groups, and thujone contents. The analysis classified the samples into two distinct groups based on their chemical classes; Group I (Svert, Sarg, Sampl, and Sath) was characterized by the highest amounts of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (42.7–88.0%), followed by oxygenated sesquiterpenes (6.7–41.6%) and monoterpenes (0–17.2%), while Group II (Soff, Stom, and SScl) showed the highest amounts of oxygenated monoterpenes (47–66.4%), followed by monoterpene hydrocarbons (4.9–22.7%), sesquiterpenes (3.2–15.3%), and oxygenated diterpenes (3.5–9.0%). Regarding thujone content, two major groups were detected. The first group comprised Sscl, Svert, Sarg, Sampl, and Sath while the second group comprised Soff and Stom (Subgenus Salvia/Section Eusphace), which exhibited the highest percentages of thujones. These findings provide a basis for further investigation into taxonomic studies of the Salvia genus.