Carissa bispinosa overlapping petal lobes, grey-haired leaves

This Carissa bispinosa photo taken in the Kouga is notable for the small, rotating flowers, the grey-haired, pointed leaves, a small green fruit solitary below the flowers, and the absence of spines.

The short, broad and round-tipped corolla lobes are white around each buff-coloured mouth that appears big for the flower size. These flowers are hairy within their corolla tubes, and sometimes around the mouths, as is the case in picture. The corolla lobes overlap to the left or anticlockwise. Note how the erect lobes appear in the half open bud next to the open flowers. Neither the five stamens nor the style of each flower show themselves outside the flower mouth.

Why the Y-shaped spines are missing from the photo cannot be explained but trust the plant to bear them on other parts (Euston-Brown and Kruger, 2023; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist).