Select African Diaspora Plant Inventory (Part 2)

Bottle gourd - Lagenaria siceraria

Welcome to the second installment of our Select African Diaspora Plant Inventory. We have assembled more than 100 plants from various sources - books, publications, prototype gardens and conferences in order to identify plants that inextricably connected to the descendants of the Middle Passage and the peoples of West Africa.

The enslavement of West Africans to provide labor for the economic engine for European nations and the colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. Africans who landed on these shores adapted their agricultural knowledge to newfound conditions - on large-scale agricultural productions on plantations, on plantation subsistence gardens they created to supplement their own food needs and in villages of freed slaves who fled from their captors and created their own agricultural economies to sustain their maroon communities.

But this is just the beginning.   Our select African Diaspora plant inventory is North American and Caribbean-centric.  We will eventually add more plants from the current gardening scene in West Africa, the Caribbean and South America.

Select African Diaspora Plant Inventory - Part 2 (D- G)

Abidjan, Ivory Coast – Local vendors with their products in the commune of Adjamé, Abidjan.

Eggplant:   Louisiana long green eggplant, Rosita, White Garden Egg	Solanum melongena	From Asia to Africa; fruits, Southern and Creole gardens	Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman)
Eggplant: Striped Garden Egg (Striped Toga Eggplant), White Garden Egg,  Rotunda Red Eggplant	Solanum aethiopicum var. Gilo	Rotunda Red Eggplant arrived in Europe from Africa by end of the 19th century	Truelove Seeds;  Sistah Seeds; Slow Food Foundation;  In the Shadow of Slavery - 2009 (J. Carney)
Elderberry	Mentyha x piperita		NYBG-African-American; Rose Hill Foundation
Garlic:  Music	Allium sativum var. Ophioscorodom		NYBG-African-American
Ginger, Peruvian yellow	Zingiber officinale		NYBG-African-American; NYBG-Caribbean
Gourd:   Birdhouse Gourd, Bradshaw’s  Bottle Gourd	Lagenaria siceraria		NYBG-African-American; While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman);  In the Shadow of Slavery - 2009 (J. Carney)
Greens (Mustard):  Carolina Broadleaf, Southern Giant Curled	Brassica juncea		NYBG-African-American;  Sistah Seeds
Greens (Collard Greens):   Alabama Blue, Green Glaze,  Nancy Malone Wheat Purple, Variegated,  William Alexander	Brassica oleracea		NYBG-African-American;  Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman);  Truelove Seeds
Greens:  Dandelion	Cichorium intybus ‘Catalogna’		NYBG-African-American;  Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman)
Greens:  East African,  Ethiopian Blue Kale	Brassica carinata	Amara Ethiopia	Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman);  Sistah Seeds
Greens: Efo Gbure, Waterleaf	Talinum fruticosum; Talcum trangulare	Nigerian leafy vegetable	NYBG-African-American; Truelove Seeds; Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance
Greens:  Efo shoko, Lagos spinach/Nigerian spinach	Celosia argentea	Nigeria, Benin, Congo and Cameroon; type of Celosia;  related to Amaranth	NYBG-African-American;  Truelove Seeds
Greens:   Eggplant, Gbognome collard	Solanum melongena;  Solanum macrocarpon	Togo, West Africa;  edible leaves	Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman); Sistah Seeds
Greens:  Lacinato Rainbow Mix,  Premier, Moses Smith Yellow Cabbage Collard	Brassica oleracea	Moses Smith Yellow Cabbage Collard is part of the heirloom collards project;  received by the Seed Savers Exchange in 2016.	NYBG-African-American;  Sistah Seeds
Greens  (Turnip):   Seven Top Turnips	Brassica rapa	1830s Virginia	Truelove Seeds
Greens (Spinach):   Molokhia Egyptian Spinach	Corchorus olitorius	Ghana, Burkina Faso;  Palestine	Farming While Black - 2018 (L. Penniman);  Truelove Seeds
Greens (Cress):  Creasy Greens	Barbarea verna	Commonly referred to as  mountain cress	NYBG-African-American;  Slow Food Foundation
Guinea pepper	Xylopia aethiopica		In the Shadow of Slavery - 2009 (J. Carney)