Fruits of the Caatinga of Sergipe use in food human

Abstract

Called Caatinga semiarid and arid vegetation of brazilian Northeast. In sergipe, 42 of the 75 municipalities have patches of this vegetation. Rather than commonly thought, the caatinga involves a great diversity of species, many of which are used by regional population, mainly for food, like the fruits, for example. The native fruit that occur in the northeast are still little known. Due to lack of knowledge on this subject, was made of a study of caatinga’s fruit that are consumed by the population of Sergipe. The study was based on the collection of the herbal life of Universidade Federal de Sergipe (ASE) and Xingo (HX). Subsequently, questionnaires were applied to the Municipal Market stallholders of Aracaju and Central Supply Aracaju S / A (CEASA), and six other municipalities that have this type of vegetation, to verify the origin of the fruit sold there. It was recorded the occurrence of 16 species in 12 families with edible representatives in the Caatinga of Sergipe. The Cactaceae, Myrtaceae, Anacardiaceae and Passifloraceae families had two species each. In the first two families, the species belongs to different genres, and the last two belong to the same genres. The families: Annonaceae, Apocynaceae, Arecaceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Rhamnaceae, Sapindaceae and Sapotaceae had only one representative edible.