Sand Num Num

tetramera: in four parts, referring to the flowers.

Usually a multi-stemmed shrub up to 3 m tall. Bark pale grey, flaking; branches armed with opposite, forked slender spines up to 5 cm long; all parts with milky sap. Leaves opposite, elliptic, lanceolate, ovate to almost round, up to 6.5 cm long, shiny dark green above, sharply tipped at the apex, sometimes slightly velvety; margin entire. Flowers in terminal clusters or in the axils of the spines, white, often tinged pink, strongly scented; corolla 4-lobed. Fruit ellipsoid, c. 1 cm long, red to purple-black hen ripe, edible.

Kenya, Tanzania,Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Carissa tetramera, the sand num-num, is a plant in the dogbane family Apocynaceae. The specific epithet tetramera means "four parts", referring to the flower.