People and Plants

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Cooks

Although fewer people remain knowledgeable about edible wild plants, some traditional recipes are still passed on from mothers to daughters...and sons...

Wild plants eaten as cooked vegetables include Agapanthus root, Asparagus shoots, Wilde blomkool, and Waterblommetjies cooked with potato and onions. Wild garlic leaves are finley chopped and served as a relish. Imifino is a traditional meal made from various cooked leaves and stems, such as Arum Lily, that are added to mealie-meal. Fruits from Wild Olive, Jacket Plum, Wild Plum, Turkey Berry, cape Gooseberry, Numnum, Sour Fig and Wild Grape are eaten raw and/or as jam, jelly and even wine is made. Tea or coffee substitutes include Honey bush and Bladder Nut.

Diviners

In South Africa we are blessed with many different cultures, each with their own spiritual and magical traditions.

At the initiation cermony of Xhosa diviners, flutes made from the stem of Arum Lilies are used as well as the ‘sacred tree’ for diviners, the Wild Olive, Cape Chestnut seeds are used as a good luck charm by the Xhosa hunters, Khoisan peoples smoked Camphor bush (slight narcotic effect).

Plumbago sticks are used by the Xhosa to ward off lightning and diviners use the roots to mend matters of the heart. Aromatic leaves and flowers of Camphor bush have been used as incense at funeral cermonies.

House Keepers

In the days of old, before retail shops and readily available transport ... how did our grandparents and great grandparents make do?

The Cape Fig & Tree Fuchsia were used to make fire sticks. Wax to make candles was obtained from boiling the berries and branches of the Wax Berry. This was also used to make soap. Other natural soaps were made from cruching and boiling the seeds of Cape Chestnut or rubbing the cruched leaves of the Cape Holly together with a little water.

Thatching and marking of baskets and mats utilise the leaves and stems of bulrushes and rees. The Khoi made soft, aromatic mattresses from Everlastings and the Gonnaqua people made rope from the bark of the shrub, known today as Gonnabos.

References & Further Reading:

Make the most of indigenous trees.
by: Fanie & Juyle-Anne Venter

Tsitsikamma Trees
by: Prof. H.B. Rycroft 1980

Wild Flowers of the Eastern Cape Province
by: A. Baten & H. Bokelmann 1966

Medicinal Plants of South Africa
by: Bem-Erik van Wyk et.al 1997Botanical Institute, Kirstenbosch, Cape Town dept. of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF)Tannie Rienie Bernado of Covie, Estelle Hester of the Crags

Please contact the People & Conservation department with any comments, suggestions or queries:
042 281 1607

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