Featherbed’s Milkwood Trees

Milkwood Tree

Sideroxylon inerme subsp. inerme (aMasethole or white milkwood, Afrikaans: wit-melkhout, Xhosa: Ximafana, Zulu:

Umakhwelafingqane) is a Southern 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. Milkwood Trees are

endemic to the Knysna area and Featherwood Nature Reserve. See our previous post: "Seed Balls".

Visitors to Featherbed Nature Reserve would have noticed some of our tributes to the Milkwood Tree. We have indeed named our Restaurant at Featherbed Reserve after this glorious indigenous and protected tree.

Milkwood Restaurant

Although all indigenous trees are protected to some extent, (and should be) the Milkwood has been given the highest level of protection. In terms of the National Forests Act of 1998 forest trees or protected tree species may not be cut, disturbed, damaged, or destroyed and their products may not be possessed, collected, removed, transported, exported, donated, purchased or

sold – except under license granted by the Department of Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF) (or a delegated authority).

Milkwood produces a strong hard and durable timber which was formerly used in boat building, but it is protected mainly because it grows in thickets which create unique micro-environments in the coastal scrub. The bark is used in traditional medicine for treating broken limbs and to dispel nightmares.

canopy form a canopy for events at Featherbed Nature Reserve

All of that having been said at Featherbed we just love the Milkwood for their beautiful green wide canopies which create the perfect backdrop for our buffet lunches, weddings and events. We had sadly lost some precious Milkwood trees in the big fires, but we have honoured them, by using all the timber we could salvage from the burnt trees to make some of the tables in our Milkwood Restaurant.

Milkwood Restaurant Featherbed Nature Reserve