Local communities use wild plants mostly for physiological needs and rely heavily on a restricted number of species

Wild plant use by humans has been ongoing for millennia. Most researchers investigate medicinal and food plants, but in reality people use plants for many other reasons. Therefore we investigated all purposes of plant use and aimed at assessing and comparing use patterns. We assessed plant use through citations of plant species obtained by interviewing 86 people distributed in 47 households from three villages near the Dja Reserve (Cameroon). The informants mentioned 159 plant species corresponding to a total of 2301 citations, but 20% of these species accounted for almost three-quarters of citations. Plants were used for many purposes: food, firewood, medicine, building, packaging, object manufacture, hunting, cosmetics, fertilizers, repellents, spirituality, and traditional rituals. Food, firewood, medicine, and building gathered most citations with 633, 482, 429, and 384 citations, respectively. Ninety-three species were mentioned for one purpose; fewer species were multifunctional. Plants used for building and making objects were the most similar. This investigation contributes to the assessment of plant use by local communities across the full spectrum of uses. It indicates that local communities use plants to meet diverse human needs, and they do so, first and foremost, to meet physiological needs. Therefore, physiological needs have greatly shaped the repertoire of knowledge regarding plant uses. Findings also suggest that most plant contributions to local communities come from a small proportion of species. Finally, the study emphasizes the need to promote the conservation of biocultural units where species and the knowledge to use species to do good are preserved simultaneously.