Lycium chinense

Chinese wolfberry, goji berry

Family: Solanaceae · Type: shrub

Chinese wolfberry is a naturalized shrub found in disturbed ground, often escaped from cultivation at elevations up to 770 meters. Flowering from May to July and September to November, this plant produces pale purple flowers 9 to 14 millimeters long with five lobes. Growing as an erect shrub up to 3 meters tall with curved to arched branches, it lacks prominent thorns or has only short thorns. Its leaves are subsessile, lance-linear to ovate, measuring 1.5 to 10 centimeters in length. The fruit is an ovoid red berry 7 to 22 millimeters long, containing over 50 seeds.

Habitat: Disturbed ground, escape from cultivation

Bloom period: May-Jul, Sep--Nov

Elevation: <= 770 m

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.