Study On Ethno Botany Of Edible Wild Plants In Shabe Sombo District, Jimma Zone, Oromia Regional State, Southwest Ethiopia

The ethnobotanical study of wild edible plants was conducted in Shabe Sombo district. The objective of the study was to assess Ethnobotany of wild edible plants and the associated knowledge of the local people. Four villages were purposively selected for the data collection from study area and 370 Informants were selected randomly from 4909 households by using simple random sampling. The sizes of sample population for each Ganda (the smallest administrative unit) were determined using sample size determination formula of Yamane (1967). Data collection on wild edible plants was conducted from March to April, 2019 with representative households. The collections of wild edible plants data tools were semi-structured interview, focus group discussions and guided field walks with informants. The collected ethnobotanical data was analyzed by using Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, Preference ranking, paired comparison and direct matrix ranking. A total of 38 wild edible plant species belongs to 31 genera and 27 families were identified from the study area. In the study area, the collections of this plant species were dominated mainly by children and women. Regarding the mode of their consumptions, the majorities (86.8%) of WEPs were consumed raw and the others were after cooked. Trees account for 42.1% followed by shrubs (28.9%). Fruits were the most used part of the wild edible plants and followed by seed (10.0%), tuber/root (7.5), leaves (5.0%) and young shoot (5.0%) in the study area. The diversity use values of ten wild edible plant species from the total of WEPs in Shabe Sombo district were recorded. Of these, the average use value for the species was taken, the scores of each species summed up and ranked. According to preference ranking analysis, the fruits of Psidium guajava were the most preferred wild food fruits over the other reported wild edible plants followed by Passiflora edulis, Syzygium guineense and Rubus steudneri. However, WEPs are like other plant species threatened due to various human activities and natural causes. Therefore, the conservation of plant species and assessing as well as preserving indigenous knowledge were the fundamental urgent issues