1. Lycium barbarum L. (matrimony vine)

L. halimifolium Mill.

Pl. 561 d, e; Map 2615

Leaf blades 0.8–2.0 cm long (to 5[–7] cm on rapidly elongating young shoots) mostly lanceolate to oblanceolate, rarely elliptic or ovate-elliptic. Flower stalks 10–23 mm long. Calyces 3–6 mm long, the lobes rounded or angled to a bluntly or sharply pointed tip. Corollas 9–14 mm long, purple, narrowly bell-shaped; the tube longer than the lobes, more or less funnel-shaped, the lobes spreading, mostly glabrous to sparsely and minutely hairy along the margins. 2n=24. May–September.

Introduced, widely scattered, mostly around urban areas and in southwestern Missouri (native of Europe, Asia, introduced sporadically nearly throughout North America). Banks of streams and rivers; also old homesites, farmyards, pastures, fencerows, levees, railroads, roadsides, and open, disturbed areas.

Feinbrun and Stearn (1963) studied type specimens in the L. barbarum complex and determined that the epithets L. barbarum and L. halimifolium apply to the same species, with L. barbarum the oldest name.