Thread: Conkerberry & Currant Bush

Currant Bush, Carrissa ovata, can be easily confused with conkerberry. It grows further south than conkerberry does not grow as profusely or tall, stems in bushes reaching 1-1.5 m and generally with diameters of less than 60 mm. It is also armed with spines.

Although its also produces a small edible black fruit, and the corky bark on the stems looks very similar to its relative, when cut the wood displays little or no orange blaze in the heartwood. The wood is more a bone coloured ie pale beige-creamy-grey, sometimes streaked with darker shades of grey,, but otherwise fine, hard and dense like conkerberry.

I include a pic of a stem I cut a couple of decades ago in Qld about 65-70 mm in diam and also a small vase turned by a now deceased IWCS friend showing its wood features for turners. I have a bit I can spare.


Car ovata.jpg

Currant bush.jpg

Current bush 1.jpg

Current bush 2.jpg

Euge, Thankyou for this post. It has cleared up some confusion for me and three other pretty experienced woodies. We were offered access onto a property to "clear some conkerberry." Now I have a better understanding of why some of the "conkerberry" from around the Charters Towers area is white or bone colour as you say. Its "currant bush" Carrissia ovata and not "conkerberry C. lanceolata - still turns very nicely though. The two were growing on the same property with C. ovata being far more plentiful and explains our disappointment in not finding any colour in most cut stems.

Thanks Mobyturns, it was discovery I made as well and thought it could be of interest.

Here are some stems of conkerberry I cut up for pen turners ... hoping the colours come up better than in the past, ...
but I see its little better than earlier images. Its really as bright as an Orange skin.

Euge

Conker pices.jpg

They have pretty good colour. I have plenty of C. lanceolata to suit my needs and apparently far more C. ovata . I have sourced mine from a few areas across the north. Colour is very vibrant off some of the red soil areas.

Both the above are Aussie natives.

Just to add more confusion is the African native Carissa spinarum that also grows in Qld and also known as Conkerberry and Current Bush. Sorry I don't know its timber colour.

Unfortunately all 3 look the same out bush