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I discovered this title  by perusing through outdated publications on the visitors rack at the National Information Office in Kigali, Rwanda.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.

(Institute of Scientific and technological research, Rwanda

Language: English,  351 pages, 2013