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Lycium californicum is a spreading shrub in the nightshade family known by the common names California boxthorn and California desert-thorn. This thorny shrub has thick, fleshy, bulbous green leaves and bell-shaped white flowers with purple streaks or spots. It bears bright red shiny berries 3 to 6 millimeters in diameter. This plant is native to the coast of southern California, including the Channel Islands, and northern Baja California. The shrub is a member of the chaparral ecosystem and other plant communities of the direct coastline in the region. It is most plentiful in the ecotone between salt marshes and the coastal sage scrub plant community. The destruction of this specific ecotone in this region has led to a reduction in the population of this plant there. A variant is also found in Arizona.
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[edit] Further reading
- James, M. L. & J. B. Zedler. (2000). Dynamics of wetland and upland subshrubs at the salt marsh - coastal sage scrub ecotone. American Midland Naturalist 143:2 298-311.
