They're pretty plants and the fruits are not bad, although I've never seen an adult eat them. :)

It has some very sharp thorns, as I discovered, when trimming one. :-))

If you like the plant, but not the thorns, there are thornless dwarf cultivars available.

Yes, I discovered this plant as a "houseplant" decades ago at a nursery tending toward more unusual plants in the trade, and found it impossible to attain again in the northern plant trade. It's funny, I find that the thorns add a certain charm to the plant, but as said above, there are thornless ones available (in both dwarf and non dwarf). Both are suited for bonsai btw, and they have a very nice horizontal manner of spreading, almost like a ground cover, and aromatic flowers are a plus. I am currently growing the thornless non-dwarf. They should be more available than they are in the interior plant trade as they do quite well inside.

Margaritaville, would you share the variety name for the regular-sized thornless Carissa? I don't purchase them often, and the growers here favor the dwarf thornless, so it didn't come to mind when I posted.

I don't know the name of the cultivar, I bought the plant on eBay. I had ordered others before, and they were all thornless dwarfs, and as I really liked the larger foliage of the non-dwarf, I was thrilled to receive the plant with or without thorns. What I can tell you, is that thornless non-dwarfs are definitely out there. If I think of it, I can take a picture of it to share with you tomorrow.

Please don't misunderstand; I wasn't arguing there aren't. It is just when I did a search, the names that came up were ones that later proved to not really be thornless, so I was unable to easily discover the proper name for regular-sized thornless ones from the Google search.

Thank you all so much for your help. I appreciate it.

The flowers have a lovely fragrance.