Mutie Fredrick Munyao, Rono Peninah Cheptoo, Kathambi Vivian, Hu Guang-Wan, Wang Qing-Feng
CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Speciality Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Gen, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China.
Sino-Africa Joint Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China.
Plants (Basel). 2020 Aug 12;9(8):1017. doi: 10.3390/plants9081017.
Wild food plants are important resources for people living in dry areas of Kenya. A botanical inventory of vascular plants of Kitui county was compiled from specimens collected during field investigations in Kitui county, at the East African (EA) herbarium and from literature reporting on plants of Kitui county. To obtain an inventory of wild edible plants found in Kitui county, literature reporting on wild edible plants of Kenya were searched and combined with the use reports obtained from field surveys in Kitui county. A total of 199 wild plants found in Kitui county have the potential of being utilized as foods in different ways. Plant species growing either as trees or shrubs (83 species) and herbs (36 species) are the dominant life forms while the best represented plant families are Leguminosae (25 species) and Malvaceae (17 species). Fruits (124 reports) and leaves (56 reports) are the common plant parts collected for food. Fruits (120 species) and vegetables (44 species) are the common wild food types in Kitui county. Further studies on species distribution are necessary to address conservation concerns that may threaten such plants.
野生食用植物是肯尼亚干旱地区居民的重要资源。基图伊县维管植物的植物志是根据在基图伊县实地调查期间收集的标本、东非植物标本馆的标本以及关于基图伊县植物的文献汇编而成的。为了获得基图伊县野生可食用植物的清单，检索了关于肯尼亚野生可食用植物的文献，并将其与在基图伊县实地调查获得的使用报告相结合。在基图伊县发现的总共199种野生植物有以不同方式用作食物的潜力。以乔木或灌木形式生长的植物物种（83种）和草本植物（36种）是主要的生活型，而代表性最强的植物科是豆科（25种）和锦葵科（17种）。果实（124份报告）和叶子（56份报告）是采集作为食物的常见植物部位。果实（120种）和蔬菜（44种）是基图伊县常见的野生食物类型。有必要对物种分布进行进一步研究，以解决可能威胁此类植物的保护问题。
