Carissa carandas

[RCDS66]

Haven't been able to find anything on this plant in this forum.
A thorny bush, 4x4 ft, with thick green leaves and single white highly fragrant blooms. Fruits are red, sweet and sour in taste and are used in local herbal medicine and pickles / salads. I have it planted near the entrance and it perfumes the area pretty well in the evening and early morning. Seems not many people are growing this bush..... worth growing in my view

[RCDS66]

My Carissa carandas blooms in flushes throughout the year. The blooms in later part of the year normally do not produce good quality fruit though. Fruit is best and tastiest when it blooms in late spring. Fragrance is better in spring and autumn

[mickthecactus]

A new one on me.

[RCDS66]

A new one on me.

It's quite an under rated plant in my view. Thorny with very fragrant flowers and berries that are known to have medicinal qualities.

[mickthecactus]

Fascinated to see it was one of the main plants in the Great Hedge of India, a hedge of some 800 miles along the Custom Line in the mid 19th century. Apparently some 10,000 staff were required to patrol and maintain it but it was abandoned in 1879.

[mickthecactus]

A new one on me.

It's quite an under rated plant in my view. Thorny with very fragrant flowers and berries that are known to have medicinal qualities.

I read that they are used in mixed pickles.

[RCDS66]

Fascinated to see it was one of the main plants in the Great Hedge of India, a hedge of some 800 miles along the Custom Line in the mid 19th century. Apparently some 10,000 staff were required to patrol and maintain it but it was abandoned in 1879.

Wow..... never knew this. I wonder how many millions of Carrisa carandas plants would have been planted to make a hedge of 800 km!! Googled it and found they did it just to stop salt smuggling from the Western coast of India unbelievable

I read that they are used in mixed pickles.

Yes, in mixed pickles and in many traditional medicines. We use it in fresh salads too.

[mickthecactus]

Not kilometres, miles....

[RCDS66]

Not kilometres, miles....

OK. So that makes around 1280 km of fence and would add another few million plants. I wonder how many dozens of nurseries would have been established to grow these millions of plants and how many thousands of people would have been hired for plantation But I still find it hard to comprehend that they did all this to stop smuggling of salt from the west coast
I wonder what happened to that fence!! Was it completed? Carissa plants have a long life but I don't think they can survive for 200 years. But all this is very interesting indeed

[mickthecactus]

I doubt if there were nurseries then.

Also apparently most of the caretakers were Muslim, no idea why. The whole thing was 2,000 miles long, the remainder made of walls and dead hedges.