Numerous, see text Carissa spinarum, the conkerberry or bush plum, is a large shrub of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae), widely distributed in tropical regions of Africa, Southern Asia, Australia, and various islands of the Indian Ocean.

In Australia for example, it is often found in association with Eucalyptus brownii, poplar box (E. populnea), gidgee (Acacia cambagei) or brigalow (A. harpophylla), in coastal rainforest, gallery forest and vine thickets in regions receiving in excess of 900 mm annual rainfall, as well as softwood scrubs and open eucalypt savannas receiving less than 700 mm annual rainfall.

Conkerberries are edible, but only when fully ripe; they have a sweet flavour, but the milky sap of this plant – and its unripe fruit – is poisonous, as typical for the Apocynaceae.

Its leaves provide food for butterflies (e.g. Australian crow, Euploea core) and moths (e.g. some hawkmoths) Carissa spinarum is frequently a weed in grazing land in northern Australia, choking out grasses, reducing the ability of livestock to feed, interfering with stock handling and providing a refuge for vermin.

[4][5] Well known for its fruit to locals and quite variable across its wide range and diverse habitat types, the conkerberry has been described time and again by botanists under a number of names.

Robert Brown alone described it no less than four times under different names, and R.H. Beddome not only described it twice as a "new species" of Carissa, but believed two other growth-forms of it to be mere varieties of Karonda (C. carandas).

Apart from that, it has also been assigned, under various names, to Antura and Arduina (both now synonymized with Carissa), as well as Azima, Cabucala, Chapelieria, Damnacanthus, Strychnos, Carandas, and Jasminonerium.