Carissa macrocarpa or grandifolia.
The Natal Plum is a shrub up to 3 or 4 m high.
An evergreen, clumping plant that may have multiple trunks.
Young branches are green with fine short reddish-brown hairs.
The surface may be smooth or have longitudunal ridges.
The parts contain a milky latex.
The paired axillary thorns are simple or once or twice forked.
They are up to 7 cm long and may have a reddish tip.
The dark, glossy leaves are opposite or sub-opposite and decussate.
They are on petioles a few mms long that may have tiny hairs.
The early, reddish leaves have hairs but the older ones do not.
The broad or narrowly-ovate blades are up to 7 cm long by 5 cm wide.
The edge is rolled under and the apex is rounded with a mucro.
The midrib and lateral veins are prominent on the paler lower surface.
There are no stipules but there are tiny glands in the leaf axils and between the petiole bases.
Initially green and fleshy they die off and become dark.
Inflorescences are a single flower or just a few and terminal or axillary.
The flowers are on a very short or no stalk.
The 5 overlapping sepals, with hairs externally, are a few mms long.
The petals are white but may have a pink tinge.
The bases of the 5 petals are fused into a tube about 16 mm long.
It may have hairs externally and a few to many on the upper 2/3 inside.
The spreading lobes, up to around 3 cm long, may have hairs on either surface.
The bases of the lobes overlap.
The 5 stamens, inserted near the middle of the tube, have filaments 1 to 2 mm long.
Some flowers have a long style and others a short one.
The anther size and ovary shape and size vary between these.
The superior ovary is 1 to 4.5 mm long, the style and stigma from 2.5 to 7 mm long.
The 2-lobed stigma can be smooth or hairy.
The ovoid to almost round fruit are berries, with numerous seeds.
They are red when ripe.
J.F.
