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Sideroxylon inerme
White milkwood is a seasonally dry coastal tree of southern and eastern Africa, usually grown as a shade or screening tree rather than a houseplant. It is hardy and tolerant of salt and wind once established, and it is valued as a firebreak plant.
Sideroxylon inerme (aMasethole or white milkwood, Afrikaans: wit-melkhout, Xhosa: Ximafana, Zulu: Umakhwelafingqane) is a southern and eastern African coastal tree, with dense foliage, black berries and small, foetid, greenish flowers. The tree's generic name means "Iron-wood" in Greek, referring to its very hard timber.
It is one of South Africa's "Protected Trees" and several specimens are provincial heritage sites. This is the only member of the genus Sideroxylon in Southern Africa.
Sideroxylon inerme trees are scattered through the coastal woodlands and littoral forests of southern and eastern Africa, from the Cape Provinces of South Africa in the south to Somalia in the north, and on Aldabra, the Comoro Islands, and the Mozambique Channel Islands in the western Indian Ocean. Historically, dense forests of large milkwood trees used to exist along the coast and bays of Cape Town, especially at Noordhoek, Macassar and Gordons Bay.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sideroxylon inerme by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
