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Low toxicity🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🍒 Carissa (wild Natal plum, num-num)

Carissa edulis · Apocynacées

🌍 Africa
🧠 To remember it“Green or pink, leave it be; purple and black, pick for thee” — like all Apocynaceae, only the fully ripe fruit is safe.
Carissa (wild Natal plum, num-num) — Carissa edulis

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Spiny shrub with milky sap, common in East and Southern Africa, producing a small oval fruit that turns from green to red, then to purple-black when fully ripe. Like many Apocynaceae, the entire plant contains white latex, and only the fully ripe fruit — never the leaves, stems, or unripe fruit — is edible.

  1. shrub with rigid, straight spines, sometimes absent depending on the subspecies
  2. milky white sap that beads up as soon as a leaf or stem is broken
  3. oval fruit, 6-11 mm, turning from green to red, then to purple-black at full maturity
  4. opposite, simple, shiny, leathery leaves
Size2-5 m
Floweringsmall fragrant white star-shaped flowers, fruits ripening progressively on the same branch
Habitatforest edges, wooded savannas, and bushveld of East and Southern Africa, also found in South Asia

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Unripe or slightly pink fruit from the same plant (Carissa edulis)the unripe fruit, like the leaves and stems, contains more latex and irritating compounds than the fully ripe fruit

To tell them apart: only harvest fruits that are completely purple-black, firm yet yielding to the touch; a fruit that is still green, pinkish, or streaked with visible latex should be left on the plant to continue ripening

🍽️ Eating it

Partsripe fruit (purple-black)
Seasonstaggered fruiting, peaks during the rainy season depending on the region
Tastesweet to slightly tart once ripe, texture similar to a small cherry

Preparation : pick only fully ripe purple-black fruits, wipe off the small amount of residual latex on the skin before eating raw, or cook into jam and juice locally

💊 Healing with it

racines et écorce largement utilisées en médecine traditionnelle est-africaine contre les maux de tête, les douleurs et les infections ; plante médicinale parmi les plus documentées d'Afrique de l'Est

Level of evidence : limited studies — Wikipedia EN / Carissa edulis species profile (NMPPDB) — synthèse ethnobotanique

⚠️ restrict consumption strictly to the fully ripe fruit; leaves, stems, and latex must be avoided for food use

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • thorny live hedges protecting enclosures and gardens
  • hardwood sometimes used for small tools
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.