Photo by Mahomed Desai on iNaturalist · CC BY 4.0
FruitSeason: December – January
Kei apple
Dovyalis afra
- When
- Typically December – January — December, January. Earlier in warm, low country; later in the hills.
- Where it grows
- Valley bushveld, dry woodland, wooded grassland and forest edges from the Eastern Cape through KwaZulu-Natal and Eswatini to Limpopo and Zimbabwe; planted everywhere as an impenetrable hedge.
- How to know it
- A dense, viciously thorny shrub or small tree with straight spines 3–6 cm (1–2½ in) long and clusters of small oval leaves at their base. Male and female flowers are on separate plants, so only some bushes fruit. The fruit is a round, apricot-coloured berry 2.5–4 cm (1–1½ in) across, the same yellow-orange inside and out, with several small seeds.
- Look-alikes
- Wild Solanum shrubs — bitter apple and its relatives — carry yellow, poisonous, Kei-apple-sized fruit in the same bushveld. They are soft-wooded shrubs, often with prickles on the leaves themselves and purple or white star-shaped flowers. A Kei apple is a woody tree or hedge armed with long, straight thorns on the branches.
- Harvest and use
- Pick fully coloured, slightly soft fruit in midsummer. It is very sour, so eat it with sugar, or make the excellent jam and jelly it is known for; it is acidic enough to pickle without vinegar.
- Caution
- Gloves and long sleeves: the thorns go deep.
Kei apple at a glance
- Also called
- Kei-appel (Afrikaans); Dovyalis afra, until 2024 Dovyalis caffra — botanists retired the epithet 'caffra', from a slur, at the 2024 International Botanical Congress
- Family
- Salicaceae (the willow family, in its modern broad sense)
- Where it grows
- Southern and eastern Africa: from the Kei River in the Eastern Cape, which gives it its name, north through KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, Mpumalanga and Limpopo to Zimbabwe, and up the eastern side of the continent to Tanzania. In Kenya it is grown mostly as a living fence.
- When to pick
- Midsummer: the trees flower from about November and ripe fruit is around in December and January, often heavy enough to weigh the branches down. Ripe fruit is evenly apricot-orange and slightly soft.
- Parts used
- The fruit — fresh with sugar, in jam and jelly, in desserts or pickled.
Questions people ask about kei apple
Is Kei apple fruit edible?
Yes. The fruit is juicy and very acidic, high in malic acid; it is eaten fresh, usually with sugar, and makes excellent jam and jelly. It is acidic enough to pickle without vinegar.
Why doesn't my Kei apple hedge fruit?
Because Kei apples come as male and female plants, and only females fruit. A female crops best with a male nearby, though some females set fruit without pollination.
When are Kei apples ripe?
In midsummer, mostly December and January in South Africa.
Where does the name Kei apple come from?
From the Kei River in South Africa's Eastern Cape, the southern end of its natural range.
Found in these regions
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Also ready in October
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Long-stalked, narrow-oval leaves floating flat on the water, and above them forked white flower spikes shaped like a 'Y', each branch lined with white petal-like bracts and dark purple-brown stamens, sweetly scented. The plant dies back as the pools dry in summer and regrows with the autumn rain.
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How to know it & its look-alikes →Photo: Kevin Faccenda · CC BY 4.0
Checked against these sources ·
- Wikipedia — Kei apple
- SANBI PlantZAfrica — Dovyalis caffra
- Random Harvest Indigenous Nursery — Dovyalis caffra
Seasons are typical for the middle of the range and move by weeks north and south, and up and down hills.
Educational information only. Never eat a wild plant or mushroom identified from a single photograph or description — confirm with a regional field guide or an experienced forager, and know the poisonous species in your area first.