Indigo berry or Randia
Randia aculeata

One of the toughest plants available. This is found from the Keys to Brevard County and withstands salt air, drought, poor soil and freezing temperatures.

It can be grown as an eight foot shrub or clipped as a two foot hedge. The shiney leaves are dark green and tough. Male and female plants are separate, yet both produce fragrant small flowers. The female produces half inch oval white berries with a brittle skin that when broken contains an inky pulp with several flat seeds. Not tasty although a few can be eaten with no harm.

Birds eat the fruit and like to nest in the thick spiney branches. It is a larval food for the tantalus sphinx moth. There seems to be a varietal difference between the taller coastal plants and the shorter, compact ones found in the pine rocklands.

This mixes well with the coastal shrubs to create a mixed hedge and can be used to create a Keys theme. For this, try mixing with coontie, thrinax palms, ernodea, pines, tetrazygia, marlberry, quailberry and Chapman's cassia. The small thorns make this a good security hedge that no one will try to walk through.