Description:

• Shrubs or small trees, much branched, spiny, sometimes scandent; spines opposite, simple or forked, often very stout
• Leaves leathery, opposite, simple, entire, broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, petiolate; axillary stipules 0; axillary glands very small or 0
• Inflorescence terminal or pseudo-axillary, usually much contracted, umbellate or corymbose, rarely a cyme
• Flowers subsessile, often conspicuous, white or tinged with pink, scented
• Calyx small, divided almost to base, eglandular within or rarely multiglandular; sepals (4)5, imbricate, ovate, acute
• Corolla salver-shaped; tube cylindric, slightly wider below mouth or near middle, hairy within, sometimes densely hairy in throat; lobes longer or shorter than tube, overlapping to the right or to the left
• Stamens enclosed in widened part of corolla tube; filaments short, slender; anthers 4-locular, linear-oblong, sometimes apiculate
• Disc 0
• Ovary entire, 2-locular, with 1-4, rarely many, ovules in each locule, with a 2-lobed, hairy tip
• Fruit a globose to oblong berry
• Seeds usually 1-4 rarely more, flat, irregularly shaped; testa rough or smooth
• x = 11 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Carissa L.
  • Linnaeus: 189 (1767a)
  • Linnaeus: 7, 52 (1767b) name conserved
  • Stapf: 496 (1907)
  • Codd: 250 (1963)
  • Kupicha: 398 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, tropics and subtropics of Africa, Madagascar, the Mascarenes, Asia and Australia, 7 in Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 5, in all countries and provinces