BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA SHEET

y the Mondari Baronga, near Tali, northwest of Juba in the Sudan, while
Corkill (1948) may be cited as an important early reference that wild plant
use is not without danger, as seen in his report on Dioscorea dumetorum, a
traditional famine food common to the Sudan.
It is Ethiopia, however, that has attracted the most botanical and nutri­
tional attention. The Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National
Defense (ICNND, 1959) completed the initial nutritional survey of E.hiopia
while Schaefer (1961) and Selinus (1968-1971, pp. 3-12) have identified the
common dietary elements throughout Ethiopia. Such data, augmented by publi­
cation of extensive food composition tables for use in Ethiopia by Agren (1969),
havepermitted research to continue on numerous important topics, for example
the work by Selinus (1970) on preparation of home-made weaning foods prepared
from both domesticated and wild food resources available locally. But perhaps
the most intriguing report on nutrition to emerge from Ethiopia is the classic
report by Knutsson and Selinus (1970) outlining cultural and historical problems
of maintaining adequate nutritional quality under severe conditions of fasting
as required by Ethiopian Coptic ritual.
Huntingford (1969, p. 28), writing on the Galla, mentions widespread use
of edible wild plants and provides documentation tor three; Rhamnus prinoides,
Rhamnus tsaddo, and Vernonia amygdalina. Kloos (1976) completed a detailed
examination of medicinal and dietary plants present in the rural markets of
central Ethiopia, while Simoons (1965) reported cultivation of the wild plant
Rhamnus prinoides (gesho) used in the preparation of Ethiopian fermented
beverages. Lemordant (1971) reported comm consumption of four wild plants
in Ethiopia .Balanites aegyptiaca, Carissa edulis, Rhamnus prinoides, and
Rhamnus staddo), while Getahum (1974) identified more than one hundred widely
36.