Canthium spinosum
(Klotzsch ex Eckl. & Zeyh.) Kuntze
Spiny canthium, Coastal canthium
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
(c) Craig Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Craig Peter
What to Eat
Edible parts: Fruit
The fruit are eaten raw and have a pleasant flavour.
Where to Find It
A tropical plant. It is usually in coastal forests. It is often on rocky hill slopes.
Africa, East Africa, Mozambique, South Africa, Southern Africa,
How to Identify
A shrub or small tree. It grows 1.5-9 m tall. It has spines up to 2.5 cm long. These occur in pairs. The leaves grow in bunches on short warty growths. The leaves are green above and lighter underneath. They are 1.3-5 cm long. The flowers are small and green. They occur in short spreading heads. These are in the axils of leaves. The fruit are often 2-lobed. Fruit are bluish-green when ripe. They are edible.
Notes
There are about 200 Canthium species.
Names & Synonyms
Coastal turkey-berry
References (8)
- Cunningham, 1985,
- Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 329
- Palgrave, K.C., 1996, Trees of Southern Africa. Struik Publishers. p 886
- Palmer, E and Pitman, N., 1972, Trees of Southern Africa. Vol. 2. A.A. Balkema, Cape Town p 2105
- Peters, C. R., O'Brien, E. M., and Drummond, R.B., 1992, Edible Wild plants of Sub-saharan Africa. Kew. p 168
- Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 96
- Welcome, A. K. & Van Wyk, B.-E., 2019, An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 136–179
- www.theplantlist.org
