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Lycium chinense
Also called Chinese Teaplant, Chinese Matrimony Vine, Chinese Box Thorn, Chinese Boxthorn, Chinese Wolfberry, Wolfberry
Lycium chinense is a deciduous, thorny shrub in the nightshade family, grown for its edible red berries (sold as goji or wolfberry) and used in traditional Chinese medicine. It is grown much like its close relative, the goji plant, in sun and well-drained soil.
Lycium chinense is one of two species of boxthorn shrub in the family Solanaceae. Along with Lycium barbarum, it produces the goji berry ("wolfberry"). Two varieties are recognized, L. chinense var. chinense and L. chinense var. potaninii. It is also known as Chinese boxthorn, Chinese matrimony-vine, Chinese teaplant, Chinese wolfberry, wolfberry, and Chinese desert-thorn.
The fruit composition is similar to that of L. barbarum, with polysaccharides, carotenoids and flavonoids as main constituents. Rutin is a prominent flavonoid, while the main carotenoid is zeaxanthin dipalmitate (49% of the carotenoid fraction), with β-carotene, two cerebrosides, and three pyrrole derivatives as other constituents.
Dozens of secondary metabolites have been isolated and identified from the roots, root bark, and leaves, including cyclic peptides, alkaloids, and flavonoids. Citric acid is the major nonvolatile organic acid in the leaves followed by oxalic acid.
The fruits may be infused with hot water to make goji tea. The plant has been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine for treating various disorders, although there is no high-quality clinical evidence that consuming it has any effect on health or disease.
Matrimony vine · Baja desert-thorn · European Matrimony Vine · Lycium humile · Pale desert-thorn · Desert-thorn
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Lycium chinense 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.
