Post Office Tree

The Post Office Tree (Afrikaans: Poskantoorboom) is a famous milkwood tree (Sideroxylon inerme) in Mosselbay, South Africa that was used by early Portuguese explorers as a post office. It is located in the grounds of the Bartholomeu Dias Museum Complex in Market Street.[1]

The Post Office Tree
The Post Office Tree monument

History

In 1501, Portuguese navigator Pêro de Ataíde sought shelter in Mossel Bay after losing much of his fleet in a storm. He left an account of the disaster hidden in an old shoe which he suspended from a milkwood tree (Sideroxylon inerme) near the spring from which explorer Bartolomeu Dias had drawn water. The report was found by the explorer to whom it was addressed, João da Nova, and the tree served as a kind of de facto post office for decades thereafter. João da Nova erected a small shrine near the Post Office Tree, and although no traces of it remain, it is considered the first place of Christian worship in South Africa.

More recently, a boot-shaped post box has been erected under the now famous tree, and letters posted there are franked with a commemorative stamp. This has ensured that the tree has remained one of the town’s biggest tourist attractions.

gollark: There are some minor issues like the arbitrarily large negative tax rate below the target income, but that's *probably* fine.
gollark: Politicians can even tweak that same income by adjusting I.
gollark: I fixed it. This gives everyone exactly the same income.
gollark: Ah, it should be x(1-T(x)), silly me.
gollark: Sure, they get arbitrarily close, but billionaires don't need to know that.

References
  1. "The Post Office Tree". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 14 November 2019.

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