Species
+

Carissa macrocarpa (Eckl.) A.DC.

Amantungula Numnum, Amantungulu, Amatungulu, Amatungulu

Climate known 60 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Carissa macrocarpa is a shrub native to tropical and southern Africa. It is commonly known as the Natal plum, amathungulu, big num-num or large num-num.

Text from Wikipedia, “Carissa macrocarpa”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Carissa

Carissa is a genus of shrubs or small trees native to tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Australia and Asia. Until recently about 100 species were listed, but most of them have been relegated to the status of synonyms or assigned to other genera, such as Acokanthera.

Text from Wikipedia, “Carissa”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Apocynaceae
Described by
(Eckl.) A.DC.
Native to
Zaïre, Kenya, Mozambique +5
Wild records
780 in range· 206 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Feb, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
967mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jan 124 mm (CHELSA)
Light
19–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to September in the northern hemisphere (September to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 967 mm a year, wettest January at 124 mm, driest June at 42 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 7.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Arduina grandiflora E.Mey.; Arduina macrocarpa Eckl.; Carissa africana A.DC.; Carissa carandas Lour.; Carissa grandiflora (E.Mey.) A.DC. and 4 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to September in the northern hemisphere (September to March at the habitat, southern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (714 mm of 967 mm) falls in September to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.0 °C against a yearly mean of 19.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: March to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 967 mm a year, wettest January at 124 mm, driest June at 42 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

967 mm a year at the habitat, 714 mm of it September to March. Wettest month January at 124 mm, driest June at 42 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 656 mm to 1292 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 52).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 7.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 7.7 °C, the absolute minimum 4.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 12.7 °C in July (across the envelope cells 7.3 °C to 15.5 °C), warmest day 25.6 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 7.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 21 °C in Jul to 26 °C in Feb; mean night from 13 °C in Jul to 20 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 967 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 282 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 4.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°34.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)4.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 19–40RH 57–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 282 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C25 / 22–2826 / 22–2825 / 21–2824 / 19–2623 / 17–2421 / 16–2321 / 15–2221 / 15–2321 / 16–2522 / 18–2523 / 19–2624 / 20–27
Night °C20 / 16–2220 / 17–2319 / 16–2218 / 13–2015 / 11–1813 / 8–1613 / 7–1613 / 8–1614 / 10–1716 / 12–1917 / 13–2019 / 15–21
Rain mm124 / 26–153112 / 23–14393 / 30–13869 / 45–9346 / 28–13042 / 21–16443 / 20–17453 / 19–14374 / 29–10497 / 40–121111 / 34–145103 / 28–139
DLI39 / 37–5237 / 35–4733 / 31–3827 / 26–2922 / 19–2619 / 16–2321 / 17–2425 / 22–2830 / 29–3234 / 32–4138 / 35–4940 / 37–52
RH %63 / 58–6664 / 58–6664 / 58–6663 / 58–6460 / 57–6258 / 54–6157 / 54–6059 / 56–6161 / 58–6262 / 58–6462 / 58–6563 / 58–66

Each figure is the median across the 282 grid cells holding the 775 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 2420:4203 (-31.025, 30.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 4.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 7.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 282 distinct grid cells holding the 775 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2420:4203 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -31.00_30.000, lapse-corrected -150 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 243 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeZaïre, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cape Provinces, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Provinces· introduced: Ascension, China Southeast, Marianas, Hawaii, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Southwest, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bahamas, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-30.274, 30.738 · in the densest population, 430 records (55% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 780 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 206 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 43 km away. 935 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 5 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 780 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Carissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpaCarissa macrocarpa

Photographs: (c) Robert Martin, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Tony Rebelo, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Mmatjie Mashao, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); no rights reserved · CC0.

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Carissa macrocarpa, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Fungal Planet description sheets: 371–399
P.W. Crous, Michael J. Wingfield, Johannes J. Le Roux, David M. Richardson (2015) · Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi
Sunlight-assisted greenly synthesised silver nanoparticles for highly selective mercury ion sensing, biomedical and photocatalytic applications
Abu Bakar Siddique, Muhammad Ashraf Shaheen, Azhar Abbas, Yasir Zaman (2025) · International Journal of Environmental & Analytical Chemistry
Carissa macrocarpa extract (ECM) as a new efficient and ecologically friendly corrosion inhibitor for copper in nitric acid: Experimental and theoretical approach
Abdallah El-Asri, M. M. Rguiti, Aaziz Jmiai, Rachid Oukhrib (2022) · Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers
Photocatalytic and biological efficacy of Carissa macrocarpa fruit extract-mediated one-pot synthesized ternary metal oxide dual S-scheme heterojunction
Abu Bakar Siddique, Muhammad Ashraf Shaheen, Azhar Abbas, Yasir Zaman (2024) · Journal of environmental chemical engineering
Carissa macrocarpa Extract Based Greenly Synthesized AuNPs: A Sustainable Approach for Lead Ion Detection, Azo Dye Degradation, and Antimicrobial Applications
Abu Bakar Siddique, Muhammad Ashraf Shaheen, Azhar Abbas, Yasir Zaman (2025) · Water Air & Soil Pollution
Antibacterial and anti-adhesion activity of the pentacyclic triterpenoids isolated from the leaves and edible fruits of Carissa macrocarpa
Roshila Moodley, Hafizah Y. Chenia, Sreekantha B. Jonnalagadda, Neil A. Koorbanally (2011) · Journal of Medicinal Plants Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 57 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.