**2.1 Description and distribution**

The species *Carissa spinarum* L. (*C. spinarum*) (Apocynaceae) grows as a thorny highly branched evergreen shrub or small tree of up to 6 m tall with evergreen leaves and masses of fragrant white flowers tinged with pink/purple. Fruits are green, then red ripening to purplish black and are edible when ripe (see **Figure 2**) [27].

*C. spinarum* is among the most widely distributed of all Apocynaceae species [28]. It occupies a wide range of habitats from wet or dry forest, to thickets and savannahs, at altitudes of 0–2450 m though it is not found in very wet climates or in equatorial rainforests [28]. Its wide ecological tolerance is reflected in the geographic distribution of botanical and ethnobotanical samples. *C. spinarum* is found in 74 countries and territories across 3 continents: Australia, throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean islands, the Arabian Peninsula; and in countries of South, East and Southeast Asia (see **Figure 3**) [8].

Carissa spinarum *L.: A Case Study in Ethnobotany and Bioprospecting Research DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104665*

#### **Figure 2.**

C. spinarum *L., by SAplants, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.*

#### **Figure 3***.*

C. spinarum *L. in GBIF Secretariat (2019). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi. org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF*.org *on 2020-10-11.*
