AGRICULTURE AND USE OF WILD AND WEEDY PIIKAP OOM OKIEK OF KENYA 1 FIONA MARSHALL GREENS BY THE Fiona Marshall (Department of Anthropology, Washington University-St. Louis, Campus Box 1114, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130; fmarshal@artsci.wustl.edu). AGRICULTURE AND USE OF WILD AND WEEDY GREENS BY THE PIIKAP OOM OKIEK OF KENYA. Economic Botany 55(1):3246, 2001. This study documents patterns of use of wild and weedy greens in a previously little studied context among the Piik ap Oom Okiek of Kenya. The Piik ap Oom have a hunter-gatherer history and at the time of the study lived at low population densities in a high altitude forest habitat. Leafy greens, both wild and domesticated, were the most com- monly eaten fresh plant food documented. Wild greens, Solanum nigrum L. and Amaranthus graecizans ssp. sylvestris L. were the most preferred. Patterns of harvesting wild greens, a few leaves from many plants and a variety of taxa together, resulted in greater dietary diversity associated with consumption of wild than domesticated greens. Greens provided contemporary Okiek households with nutritious and low maintenance plant food. Increased use of wild and weedy greens was an important benefit of the adoption of the agricultural complex by the Okiek. AGRICULTURE ET UTILISAT1ON DES VERTS SAUVAGES ET DE WEEDY PRES DES OKIEK PIIK AP OOM DU KENYA. Cette ~tude documente les habitudes d'utilisation des plantes sauvages & feuilles comestibles dans le contexte jusqu'ici peu ~tudi~ des Okiek Piik ap Oom du Kenya. Les Piik ap Oom ont une histoire de chasse et de cueillette et vivent en densitg faible dans un habitat forestier ~ haute altitude. Les plantes glfeuilles, sauvages et domestiques, repr~sentent la nour- riture la plus consommge. Solanum nigrum L. et Amaranthus graecizans ssp. sylvestris L. sont les plantes sauvages les plus prisdes. L'habitude de r~colter des plantes sauvages, quelques feuilles provenant de nombreuses plantes, repr~sentant ensemble une vari~tg de taxons, se traduit par une grande diversitd alimentaire associ~e f la consommation de plantes sauvages plutOt que domestiques. Les plantes constituent pour les m~nages Okiek d'aujourd'hui une nourriture nutritive gt faible entretien. L'utilisation croissante de plantes sauvages gt feuilles comestibles repr~sente un avantage important li~ gl l'adoption, par les Okiek, du systkme agri- cole. Key Words: edible greens; Kenya; Piik ap Oom Okiek. The continued importance of wild and weedy greens to agricultural communities worldwide has been stressed in a number of recent studies (Bye 1981; Ertug-Yaras 1997; Etkin 1994; Fleu- ret 1979a,b; Heuret and Fleuret 1980; Humphry et al. 1993; Johns and Kokwaro 1991; Ogle and Grivetti 1985a,b,c; Oomen and Grubben 1978). In East Africa, the use of wild leafy greens for food has been documented since the 1930s (Heuret 1979a,b; Peristiany 1939; Riley and Brokensha 1988; Tallantire 1975), but their di- etary importance has become clear only as a re- sult of recent systematic studies (Fleuret 1979a,b; Johns and Kokwaro 1991). 1Received 22 October 1999; accepted 28 May 2000. Leafy greens flourish in disturbed ground (Anderson 1952; Bye 1981; Etkin and Ross 1994) and can be viewed as a sustainable food source, sometimes a multicrop flourishing be- tween rows of maize (Bye 1981). Different com- binations of plants are also used flexibly under varying socioeconomic and environmental con- ditions (Etkin 1994; Etkin and Ross 1994; Hum- phry et al. 1993; Johns 1994; Riley and Broken- sha 1988). The dietary and nutritional impor- tance of these plants has been stressed by nu- merous scholars. Leafy greens both cultivated and wild are a good source of vitamins and min- erals (e.g., calcium, vitamin A, phosphorus, iron) and they are also rich in protein (Abe and Imbamba 1977; Fleuret 1979a,b; Faboya 1983; Economic Botany 55(1) pp. 32-46. 2001 9 2001 by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A.