Lycium dasystemum var. rubricaulium A. M. Lu.

Shrubs ca. 1.5 m tall. Stems much branched; branches grayish white, yellowish, or rarely brown-red, stout, young branches slender, elongate, older growth with formid-able thorns 0.6-6 cm in leaf and flower fascicles. Leaf blade lanceolate, oblanceolate, or broadly lanceolate, 1.5-6 × 0.5-1.5 cm, base cuneate or subdecurrent, apex acute or obtuse. Pedicel 1-1.8 cm. Calyx campanulate, ca. 4 mm, often 2- or 3-divided halfway. Corolla purple, funnelform, 0.9-1.3 cm; tube sparingly villous inside; lobes ovate, half as long as corolla tube, ciliolate. Stamens slightly exserted from spreading corolla lobes; filaments sparsely villous slightly above base. Berry red, ovoid, or oblong 1-1.2 cm × 5-8 mm. Seeds more than 20, 1.5-2 mm. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep.

Separation of this species from Lycium turcomanicum Boiss. (=L. depressum Stocks) follows Pojarkova (l.c.), who placed the two species in different series. She indicated that in L. dasystemum the filament base and adjacent corolla tube are pubescent and the 10-22 seeds are 1.5-2 mm in diam., while in L. turcomanicum the filament base and corolla tube are glabrous and the (2-)5-15 seeds are 2-3 mm in diam. The two taxa occupy a continuous geographic area, and the differences may be only quantitative in nature. Further work is needed to verify that L. dasystemum is really a distinct species.

Specimens with brown-red branches from Qinghai, which were described as Lycium dasystemum var. rubricaulium, appear to represent a local variant or abnormal suite of specimens rather than a distinct taxon.

Slopes, sands, oases; 200-3600 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan]