Lycium californicum
species of plant
Lycium californicum is a spreading shrub in the nightshade family known by the common names California boxthorn and California desert-thorn.
This plant, as Lycium californicum var. californicum, is native to the Coastal sage scrub and coastal bluffs along the coast of Southern California to northern Baja California and the northern and southern Channel Islands. As Lycium californicum var. arizonicum it is found in the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona.
Description
This thorny shrub, with rigid-spreading branches. Has thick, fleshy, bulbous 3–10 millimetres (0.12–0.39 in) green leaves. The widely triangular bell-shaped white flowers have purple streaks or spots. It bears bright red shiny berries 3–6 millimetres (0.12–0.24 in) in diameter, and oblong seeds.
Varieties
L. c.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lycium californicum” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lycium, californicum and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q310676. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lycium californicum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.