Laboratoire de Physiologie végétale et Biotechnologies, Département de Biologie, Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku (USTM), Franceville, Gabon
C4 plants are plants with modified photosynthetic metabolism, allowing overproduction of organic matter, compared to other so-called C3 plants. It is for this reason that C4 plants are used primarily in the nutritional and nutritional formulations of infants. Current data on these plants are only limited to Western work done on a limited sample. This work has been done to identify the C4 food plants found on the Gabonese market. A collection of food plants was thus carried out on the central market of Franceville, and the samples studied in the laboratory. The determination technique was based on anatomical identification of perivascular sheaths at the level of cellular cross sections. The results obtained showed that out of 32 species analyzed, only 5 plants belonging to 2 families were of C4 typology. These are local lemongrass (Cymbopogon cytratus, Poaceae), maize (Zea mays, Poaceae), sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum, Poaceae), Chinese lemongrass (Cymbopogon sp., Poaceae) and folon / amaranth (Amaranthus sp. Amaranthaceae). The presence of C4 plants on the Gabonese market seems relatively weak.