Contribution to the ethnotaxonomic study of edible spontaneous fruit species in the ethnic Diola of Oussouye (Senegal)
Natural products of plant meet a renewed interest for a decade. However, climate change and human action have led to a degradation of the natural ecosystems and extinction for certain plant. This study contributes to a better knowledge of popular classification systems of spontaneous plants. Ethnobotanics survey based on an open semi structured interview, exchanges oral and direct observations were made in the field. They took place in 33 villages of Oussouye department which is the Diola’s bastion. They mobilized 82 informants including 30 groups and 52 individuals with male predominance. In fact, we had 80.77 % men against 19.23 % women. Our results showed that among 62 wild botanical species, only 4 were domesticated. They are for the greater part tree and bush, and are more present in the vegetable circles. The dominant families are Annonaceae and Apocynaceae and the most important use values are noted in Arecaceae with 10.52 and Anacardiaceae with 8; the generic diversity is mostly marked by Anacardiaceae. The population uses 17 classifications systems of nomination of plants. The classification “bu” is mostly used on localities such as: Huluf, Esulalu, Ejamat, Her and those of “ni”, “nu” in Dyiwat. In addition 7 tables reference are mentioned and order of importance are: use, animal, morphology, ecology onomatopoeia and metaphor. The results bring out different edible fruit species, the age group of people which master better the knowledge related to these plants and methods of popular classification.