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 from Southern European countries are generally missing or underrepresented. In addition, most of the available databases lack detailed trait information at the intraspecific level, an important source of trait variation linked to species potential for adaptation. Data were gathered from 21 Italian research groups. Individual measurements of leaf area (LA) and specific leaf area (SLA) for the most abundant vascular plant species were provided at the plot level using standardised protocols of trait measurement. The ITV-net dataset includes 8,518 records of leaf area (LA) and specific leaf area (SLA) in 1,043 georeferenced plots spanning most of the Italian peninsula and eight EUNIS habitat 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 will contribute to expanding research on a largely underrated source of trait variation and on its ecological consequences.
