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California desert-thorn

Lycium californicum

Also called California Boxthorn

California desert-thorn
Photo: Patrick Alexander from Las Cruces, NM, CC0

California desert-thorn is a spiny, spreading desert and coastal shrub in the nightshade family, grown mainly in dry gardens and xeriscapes. Give it full sun, sharp drainage, and little water once established.

Family
Solanaceae (Nightshade family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply but infrequently, letting the soil dry out fully between waterings.
Soil
Sandy or gritty, very well-drained soil.
Temperature
15–35 °C; tolerates brief frost but protect below -5 °C.
How easy
Easy
Native range
SW. California to S. Arizona and N. Mexico, Guadalupe
Climate
desert or dry shrubland

About

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.

Other Lycium plants

Saracha quitensis · Kraal honeythorn · Water jacket · Australian Boxthorn · Matrimony vine · Berlandier's wolfberry · Baja desert-thorn · Carolina desert-thorn · Chinese desert-thorn · Small-leaved honeythorn · Peach thorn · European Matrimony Vine

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Lycium californicum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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