Shrubs [trees, vines]; latex milky. Stems erect [scandent], armed with paired spines [unarmed], glabrous or eglandular-pubescent especially on younger growth. Leaves persistent, opposite [whorled], petiolate; stipular colleters intrapetiolar and interpetiolar; laminar colleters absent. Inflorescences terminal [axillary], cymose, short-pedunculate. Flowers: calycine colleters present or absent; corolla white [pink], salverform, aestivation sinistrorse [dextrorse]; corolline corona absent; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted at top of corolla tube; anthers not connivent, not adherent to stigma, connectives not appendiculate or enlarged, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectaries absent. Fruits baccate, solitary, erect [pendulous], red or purple [black], globose or ellipsoid, terete or somewhat compressed, surface smooth, glabrous. Seeds obliquely ovate to elliptic or orbiculate, flattened, not winged, not beaked, not comose, not arillate. x = 11.

Distribution

Introduced; Asia, Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Pacific Ocean Islands, Australia.

Discussion

Species 7 (1 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Carissa macrocarpa