ISHS Acta Horticulturae 123: VI African Symposium on Horticultural Crops
INDIGENOUS AND ADAPTED AFRICAN VEGETABLES |
| Author: | Zac.O. Gbile |
| Abstract:
Vegetables are plants which are consumed in addition to starchy basic food in order to make it more palatable (Grubben, 1977). The reason some plants come to be selected as vegetables by the early man is not easy to determine. He probably observed that animals feeding on certain plants suffer disturbing or even fatal reaction and such are recognized as poisonous and often are employed as such. There must always have been those who looked for, cooked and ate new leaves for the excitement of discovery. Nearly all African vegetables are annuals. In the wet season vegetables grow abundantly along roadsides, bush and abandoned farms. Some are grown between main food crops. In Nigeria, good market gardens can be found during the dry season (November-March) near the rivers, where they are grown on beds. Apart from Vernonia amygdalina (small tree) grown in gardens for vegetables and medicinal purpose, trees with edible leaves are not grown. They are always harvested from the wild when needed. These wild vegetables are being threatened, thus, there is an urgent need to conserve these valuable resources. Martin and Rubberte(1975), Grubben (1977) and Van Epenhùijsen (1974) have provided very useful information on the Tropical vegetables. Edible leaves serve as direct food sources. The important species are grown on both home and commercial scales. In villages, green leaves from wild plants are used as regular and important items of the diet and to supply essential nutrients for normal growth. Green leaf vegetables are useful regulators of the digestive tract. They provide vitamins and minerals quite out of proportion to their weight. Carbohydrate content of leaves is usually insignificant. Although they are often not rich sources of protein, some contain sufficient to supplement an otherwise inadequate starchy diet. Regretably these usages hardly touch on the potentials that exist in most environments, thus, vegetables can be said to be underutilized and neglected. It is the objective of this paper to present a brief description of most indigenous and adapted plants used as vegetables largely in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa. The most important species within the different botanical families are considered. | |
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