Nutritional Potentials of Wild Edible Plants of Rwanda

by J.B. Nduwayezu, C.K.Ruffo, V. Minani & E. Munyaneza

I discovered this title by perusing through outdated publications on the visitors rack at the National Information Office in Kigali, Rwanda. There was a write-up of this work featured in a magazine on local scientific accomplishments. Further inquiry led me to an on-line article about the team’s work on this book.

Immediately I searched the best bookstore in Kigali, but the owners told me that the book was sold out and now out of print. On a hunch I searched Amazon, and lo and behold I found a copy available at a bookstore in Oregon, USA. I was in Kigali, but I immediately bought the book for a complete steal (something under $50.00) and forgot about it. the book promptly arrived at my family’s house, and when I returned after many months on the road was thrilled to have such a rare resource in my hands.

Now a few years later, I have never been able to find another copy.

Recently in November 2019 I returned to Rwanda with this book in hand. It served me very well in that it allowed me to show the locals what I was looking for.

A great book for an area with virtually no information resources on edible plants. It has a strange “Science Poster Title” more suited to a scientific conference than a book, but faced without having the book or an artistic version, I’d opt for this. This simply fills a void that needed to be filled. I know of only one other book that covers Rwandan edible plants, apart from this work, that being on the mountain gorillas with a chapter dedicated to the plants that the gorillas eat.

This book, then by my own experience, is obviously a very rare. For those of you who are searching for resources it may exist in some of the larger university libraries of the world. I myself am diligent, and do regular searches for the rarest of books, over time I have eventually tracked down copies of even the rarest.

I hope that you will be able to access this book in some form because it is one of the only sources of information on the edibles of Rwanda.