Bitterroot Restoration

Order: Gentianales
Family: Apocynaceae
Common name: Karamcha, Karamya, Karancha(Beng.); Karaunda(Eng.).
Life cycle: Perennial
Native Range: Native to India

Carissa congesta is a rank-growing, straggly, woody, climbing shrub, usually growing to 3-5 m high, sometimes ascending to the tops of tall trees. Branches numerous and spreading, forming dense masses, set with sharp, simple or forked thorns, up to 5 cm long, in pairs in the axils of the leaves. Leaves are from one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half inches long, very dark green, shiny and opposite and they have large spines like many other Carissas. If the leaves or stems are injured, the white milky sap is seen, which is characteristic of this group of plants. Carissa congesta can be kept clipped into a shrub, it really prefers to act much like a vine similar to bougainvillea and will climb to the tops of rather tall trees. Flowers fragrant, tubular with 5 hairy lobes, twisted to the left in the bud instead of to the right as in other species; white, often tinged with pink. Fruit size is variable, but most fruits are about three-quarters of an inch in diameter with a few seeds.

The unripe fruit is used medicinally as an astringent. The ripe fruit is taken as an antiscorbutic and remedy for biliousness. Their leaf decoction is valued in cases of intermittent fever, diarrhea, oral inflammation and earache.