This is a deciduous shrub which reaches 2.5 metres, and the arching branches have a few spines. Leaves alternate or in small clusters, narrowly elliptical and widest at the middle. Flowers purple, becoming browner, trumpet shaped, 8 to 9 mm long, with protruding stamens. Fruit a small rather elongate orangey red berry.

Lycium chinense

Hedges and scrub, often over old walls.

June to September.

Perennial.

Widely naturalised in England, scarcer elsewhere in Britain.

Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 53 of the 617 tetrads.