Species in the genus Lycium:

Lycium chinense / Kuko

Lycium chinense / Kuko クコ

Lycium chinense: A deciduous shrub in sunny wastelands, seashores, water edge banks, forest edges, or roadsides. Branches are ridged, with the tips and axils with prickles. Leaves of alternate phyllotaxis attach onto branch tips in many cases like in-clusters; blades are 2-4cm long and in an elliptical to lanceolate-shape, with obtuse, bases tapering to petioles, margins entire, and both surfaces with no hairs. Axils on brachyblasts put 1-3 purple flowers on them; corollas measure about 1cm, funnel-shaped, and the upper parts cleft in five, and calyxes are bell-shaped, and the upper parts generally cut in five. Sap fruit, about 1cm long and oblong., matures in red from late summer to early winter. Bloom time: July-November.