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Background: The West African country of Burkina Faso (BFA) is an example for the enduring importance of traditional plant use today. A large proportion of its 17 million inhabitants lives in rural communities and strongly depends on local plant products for their livelihood. However, literature on traditional plant use is still scarce and a comprehensive analysis for the country is still missing.
Methods: In this study we combine the information of a recently published plant checklist with information from ethnobotanical literature for a comprehensive, national scale analysis of plant use in Burkina Faso. We quantify the application of plant species in 10 different use categories, evaluate plant use on a plant family level and use the relative importance index to rank all species in the country according to their usefulness. We focus on traditional medicine and quantify the use of plants as remedy against 22 classes of health disorders, evaluate plant use in traditional medicine on the level of plant families and rank all species used in traditional medicine according to their respective usefulness.
Results: A total of 1033 species (50%) in Burkina Faso had a documented use. Traditional medicine, human nutrition and animal fodder were the most important use categories. The 12 most common plant families in BFA differed considerably in their usefulness and application. Fabaceae, Poaceae and Malvaceae were the plant families with the most used species. In this study Khaya senegalensis, Adansonia digitata and Diospyros mespiliformis were ranked the top useful plants in BFA. Infections/Infestations, digestive system disorders and genitourinary disorders are the health problems most commonly addressed with medicinal plants. Fabaceae, Poaceae, Asteraceae, Apocynaceae, Malvaceae and Rubiaceae were the most important plant families in traditional medicine. Tamarindus indica, Vitellaria paradoxa and Adansonia digitata were ranked the most important medicinal plants.
Conclusions: The national-scale analysis revealed systematic patterns of traditional plant use throughout BFA. These results are of interest for applied research, as a detailed knowledge of traditional plant use can a) help to communicate conservation needs and b) facilitate future research on drug screening.
Edible wild plants are an important supplement to the diets and livelihoods of rural households in West Africa. Despite their role in improving diets, mitigating famine periods and generating income there is a lack of extensive information on their uses for broader areas. Based on ethnobotanical records, we investigated wild food plants on the national scale of Burkina Faso, to provide a comprehensive overview of all edible plants, their taxonomy, plant parts and preparations. Our study revealed a relatively high number of 354 edible wild species, representing 66 plant families, with Fabaceae and Poaceae being the most species rich. Almost one third of these species have two to four edible plant parts. The number of species with edible fruits ranked highest, followed by seeds, leaves, starchy underground storage organs and others. Overall, the results underline that wild plant species contribute considerably to nutrition and the database compiled in this study constitutes a good basis for further evaluations of the potential of edible plants in Burkina Faso.