Sideroxylon inerme

Sideroxylon inerme, or commonly the white milkwood, is a shrub or small tree that sometimes reaches 10 m in height (SA Tree List No. 579). The fruits, here green, spherical and fleshy, are densely clustered near a stem-tip. They will all follow the first one in turning purplish black when ripe, before or during January.

The species distribution is widespread in South Africa, coastally in the Western Cape from the Cape Peninsula to the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, as well as in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. It also occurs in several other African countries.

The habitat is coastal forest and woodland, sometimes forming thickets on its own. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

This is one of the respected woody inhabitants of many special places of natural beauty in the country and region. Coates Palgrave mentions three specimens that are national monuments: the Post Office Tree at Mossel Bay dating from 1500, the Treaty Tree in Woodstock where control of the Cape was given to the English by the Dutch in 1806 and the Fingo Milkwood Tree near Peddie, where the Fingo tribe accepted British protection in 1835 (Bean and Johns, 2005; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 1997; Pooley, 1993; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).