TITLE:
Ethnomycological Conspectus of West African Mushrooms: An Awareness Document
AUTHORS:
Osemwegie Omorefosa Osarenkhoe, Okhuoya Aroye John, Dania Akande Theophilus
KEYWORDS:
Ethnomycology; Conspectus; West African Mushrooms; Explorative Profiting
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Microbiology,
Vol.4 No.1,
January
22,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The ethnological
knowledge of mushrooms despite its millennial existence and its empirical documentation are more recent phenomena. In Africa, the knowledge of their
historical uses as food, medicine, source of income and small scale businesses, and the sociological impacts (myth,
culture and spirituality) are apparently threatened due to slow ethnomycology
research drive. The poor identification and documentation of edible and
medicinal species of mushrooms in many developing nations have created some
degrees of inconsistencies in their usages relative to folk medicine practice,
food and mythological beliefs. Their relevance in modern day pharmaceutics and
nutraceuticals is a product of human experimentation over time.Factors that may be anthropogenic, ethnographic, ethnoecological/environmental have
been implicated in mushrooms underutilization and under-exploration of mushrooms in West Africa.
Ethnomycological literatures on West Africa are scant, random, are limited in scope and fraught with
taxonomic inconsistencies. This paper is based on extant ethnomycology treatise
and aims at representing an integrative knowledge of useful mushrooms of West
Africa and their uses vis-a-vis indigent cultures.