Lycium cooperi

Cooper's wolfberry, cooper's desert-thorn

Family: Solanaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Cooper's wolfberry is a California native shrub found in the eastern Sierra Nevada slopes, southern San Joaquin Valley, Sierra Nevada eastern regions, and desert areas at elevations below 2,000 meters in sandy to rocky flats and washes. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces green-white to lavender-tinged flowers with narrow funnel-shaped corollas approximately 9 to 12 millimeters long. Growing up to 2.5 meters tall with rigidly ascending branches, it forms an erect shrub with glandular-puberulent stems. Its leaves are oblanceolate to obovate, measuring 1 to 3 centimeters long, arranged along leafy branches. The fruit is a distinctive yellow to orange berry 5 to 9 millimeters long, marked with two cross-grooves above its middle.

Habitat: Sandy to rocky flats, washes

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: < 2000 m

Bioregions: SNH (e slope), s SnJV, SNE, D

California counties: San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Kern, Riverside, Inyo, Mono, San Diego, Imperial

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