Carissa bispinosa small flowers

These short- and round-lobed Carissa bispinosa flowers would have been called C. haematocarpa if that name had still been in use. Interesting that the smaller flower form here goes with a bigger hole in the centre, the flower mouth, than seen on some flowers with longer petal lobes.

In picture they look merely different to some plants of their kin or kind, in the sense of children from the same parents sometimes low in likeness. Parents may take trouble to explain such contrasting appearances to astonished neighbours and even family. Harder to explain greater likeness to other individuals in the neighbourhood. Thousands might believe them, untold numbers not. DNA doesn’t lie, but science sometimes takes its time in successfully conveying information to some parties. Like people, it does change its collective (or occasionally partitioned and internally inconsistent) mind.

So, intraspecies variation is the verdict in this case according to SANBI, while iNaturalist still separated the two species at the time of writing (iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).