Skip to content

Your account

With an account, your progress (modules read, XP, badges, cards, notebook, pack, challenges) follows you on every device. Without one, it stays in this browser.

or
Harmless🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🌸 Pigface (Karkalla / Hottentot Fig)

Carpobrotus spp. · Aizoaceae

🦘 Australia🏜️ Desert
🧠 To remember it“Pigface soothes a jellyfish sting as well as it satisfies your hunger” - the same juice for skin and stomach.
Pigface (Karkalla / Hottentot Fig) — Carpobrotus spp.

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Prostrate succulent plant forming long mats, with fleshy leaves triangular in cross-section, and large, showy daisy-like flowers in pink, purple, or yellow. The fleshy, fig-like fruit, called "pigface" because its withered flower resembles a pig's snout, is edible when ripe.

  1. crawling mat of fleshy stems and thick leaves triangular in cross-section
  2. large, showy, multi-petaled pink/purple/yellow flowers
  3. fleshy fig-like fruit at the tip, edible when ripe
Sizeprostrate habit, mats several meters wide
Floweringspring-summer
Habitatcoastal dunes and arid regions of Australia and South Africa, sandy saline soils, highly tolerant to drought and sea spray

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous look-alikesaucun

To tell them apart: the fleshy leaves triangular in cross-section (never flat) and the large, showy multi-petaled flowers distinguish pigface from any toxic plant on Australian coastal dunes

🍽️ Eating it

Partsripe fruit, young leaves
Seasonsummer-autumn for fruits
Tastesweet-and-salty fruit, slightly fermented taste similar to fig; leaves are salty and slightly tangy

Preparation : fruit eaten raw when fully ripe and soft (slightly salty-sweet pulp); young leaves eaten raw in small quantities or cooked, naturally slightly salty

💊 Healing with it

the juice from crushed leaves is traditionally applied as a mild astringent on jellyfish stings and other skin irritations

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia - Carpobrotus

⚠️ no known toxicity

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • used as a firebreak groundcover due to its high water content
  • coastal dune stabilization (though sometimes an invasive species outside its native range, displacing local flora)
Sources (1)

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.