Mimusops caffra E.Mey. ex A.Dc.

Tree or large shrub up to about 15 m high, with stem up to 50 cm diam.; youngest parts densely rusty-tomentose. Leaves obovate, obovate-oblong or obovate-cuneate to almost obcordate, 3-7 cm long and 1.5-4 cm broad, firmly coriaceous, usually with strongly reflexed margin, glaucous and glabrous above, paler and appressed silky-pubescent beneath (almost invariably white or silvery), with usually rounded, emarginate or retuse apex, base tapering into the 5-15 mm long petiole. Flowers usually numerous on one branchlet, often 2-4 together in the leaf axils; pedicels usually recurved, 2-3 cm long, mostly distinctly 4-angled, shortly rusty-tomentose, tending to turn grey. Sepals lanceolate, acuminate, about 1 cm long; outer ones rusty-tomentose outside, about 3 mm wide, inner ones with pale tomentum, about 2 mm wide. Corolla glabrous; tube short; lobes lanceolate, about 10 mm long, with about 7 mm long lanceolate appendages. Filaments about 2.5 mm long; anthers about 6 mm long. Staminodes triangular-ovate, slightly longer than the filaments, densely pilose outside. Ovary ovoid, densely pilose, about 2 mm long; style long-cylindrical, tapering into an acute point, about 11 mm long. Fruit ovoid, 1.5-2 cm long, 1-1.5 cm diam., more or less rounded at the top but often contracted into and crowned by the persistent style, red when ripe, edible, usually (always?) 1-seeded; calyx-lobes persistent under the fruit, not reflexed, but appressed to the fruit, greyish pubescent. Seed oval, subcompressed, indistinctly keeled at the ventral side, not produced at the base, 13-17 mm long, 8-9 mm wide and 5-7 mm thick in the middle; testa shining brown.

Coastal thickets on sand dunes, where it rarely exceeds 5 metres tall and where its foliage suffers under salt spray and sea winds. It may be dominant in sheltered coastal forest behind the littoral zone, where it can reach 20 metres.

The fruit are eaten raw. They are sweet. They can also be made into a drink.

Can be grown by cuttings or seedlings.