Abstract
Over the last decades plant ecology has greatly benefited from open data on functional traits.Nowadays, several national and international trait databases are available, but trait data fromSouthern european countries are generally missing or underrepresented. In addition, most of theavailable databases lack detailed trait information at the intraspecific level, an important sourceof trait variation linked to species potential for adaptation. Data were gathered from 21 Italianresearch groups. Individual measurements of leaf area (La) and specific leaf area (SLa) for themost abundant vascular plant species were provided at the plot level using standardised protocolsof trait measurement. the ItV-net dataset includes 8,518 records of leaf area (La) and specific leafarea (SLa) in 1,043 georeferenced plots spanning most of the Italian peninsula and eight eUNIShabitat types. Individual La and SLa measurements are available for 709 native and alien species(77 families, 353 genera). the ItV-net dataset is freely available in the Zenodo repository and willcontribute to expanding research on a largely underrated source of trait variation and on itsecological consequences.