General: Pale Desert-thorn (Lycium pallidum) is a stout, many-stemmed, upright shrub with stiff thorns at the tip of each little stem. Leaves are long and oval, wider towards the tip. Stems and leaves without hairs. Flowers are greenish-white to light-purple. These shrubs are deciduous, quickly losing their leaves as the summer heats up.

Pale Desert-thorn can be recognized from other Lycium species by the leaves (large, glaucous [covered with fine, waxy powder that can be rubbed off] and flowers (long, funnel-like).

Flowers are long, tubular, and purple. The flower tube is long (to 10 mm), but the petals are short (2-8 mm), and the sepals are short (1-2 mm).

Pale Desert-thorn is an uncommon component of vegetation communities in damp areas along washes in the Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub) life zone.

Family: Nightshade (Solanaceae).

Other Names: desert thorn, box thorn, box-thorn, wolfberry.

Plant Form: Usually upright, stout shrubs, 3-4 ft tall (to 9 ft).

Height: To about 9 feet, usually 3-4 feet.

Bark: yellow-gray to reddish-black. Hairless or few small hairs.

Stems: Generally upright to spreading, stout, each tiny stem tipped with a thorn. Generally hairless.

Leaves: Generally long (10–50 mm) and oval (3–25 mm), spatulate to oblanceolate, without hairs.

Flowers: Blooms spring through early summer. Inflorescence: single or 2-3 flowers from leaf axils. Pedicels 4–16 mm. The calyx cup-like (2–8 mm long) with long lobes (1–2 times cup length). The greenish-white to light-purple corolla is funnel-like (12–25 mm long) with with 5 spreading petals 3–5 mm long. Stamens extent out of the floral tube.

Fruit: Berry, red when ripe, oval, 10 mm long, fleshy, edible. Hairless. Seeds few (4-8) or many (20-50) depending on variety.

Habitat: In southern Nevada, damp washes and canyons. Occurs in drier areas farther south.

Elevation: To about 4,500 feet.

Distribution: Southern California to southern Nevada and eastern Arizona, and south into northern Mexico. More common south of Nevada.

Comments: The berries are edible.

--Seeds 20–50; corollas 12–25 mm. Lycium pallidum var. pallidum. pale desert-thorn. UT-AZ to TX, Mexico

--Seeds 4–8; corollas (8–)12–20 mm. Lycium pallidum var. oligospermum. rabbit thorn. CA and NV