Abstract:
The study assessed the contributions to rural livelihoods and phyto-chemical properties of selected wild vegetables among forest communities in Ondo State, Nigeria. Multi- stage sampling technique was used in the study. In the first stage, the State was stratified into vegetation zones based on the three dominant vegetation types (mangrove/freshwater swamp, rainforest and derived savanna) found in it. A total of five forest reserves namely Akure, Idanre, Oluwa, Oyinmo and Ojigbobini were randomly selected from sixteen forest reserves found in the State. The second stage involved a random selection of four forest communities from each of the selected forest reserves (where available). In the third stage, ten respondents were randomly selected from each of the selected forest communities. Semi-structured interview schedules were administered to the respondents in the study area in order to identify and examine the demographic characteristics of the forest dwellers, identify the wild vegetables utilized by them and assess the contributions of the wild vegetables to their livelihoods. Three plant samples (Cissampelos owariensis, Kyllinga erecta, and Grewia sp) from the wild vegetables encountered on the field were purposively selected for mineral analysis, proximate composition and phyto-chemical properties.
Results from socio-economic survey indicated that farming was the major occupation of the respondents and that the mean age was 46 years. The survey also revealed that a total of 76 plants were identified across the three vegetation zones which belong to 41 botanical plant families with the family Malvaceae having the highest occurrence of eight. Amongst all the plants mentioned across the vegetation zones, Amaranthus viridis which belongs to the family Amaranthaceae had the highest frequency of mention. The part of plant mostly used was the leaves with 68.83%. Plants identified were mostly wild with 49.35% and were mostly used for
