Wild Lycium barbarum has thin branches, light gray color, vertical stripes on it, alternate leaves, paper and oblong shape. When flowering, the flowers are solitary on long branches, or the axils of leaves are paired, the corolla is funnel-shaped, and the berries can grow into rectangular circles and be red.
Growth habit
Lycium barbarum likes cold climate and has strong cold tolerance. When the temperature is stable at about 7℃, seeds can germinate and seedlings can resist the low temperature of -3℃. When the temperature is above 6℃ in spring, spring buds begin to sprout. Lycium barbarum overwinters at -25℃ without freezing injury.
Lycium barbarum has developed root system and strong drought resistance, and can still grow in arid desert. In order to obtain high yield in production, it is still necessary to ensure water supply, especially in the flower and fruit period. The low-lying land with long-term water accumulation is not conducive to the growth of Lycium barbarum, and even causes root rot or death.
With sufficient light, the branches of Lycium barbarum grow healthily, with many flowers and fruits, large fruit grains, high yield and good quality. Lycium barbarum mostly grows in alkaline soil and sandy loam, which is most suitable for cultivation in deep and fertile loam.
ecological distribution
Lycium barbarum: It is distributed in Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, southern Gansu, and southwestern, central, southern and eastern China.
North Korea, Japan and Europe all breed or escape into the wild. Often born in hillside, wasteland, hilly land, saline-alkali land, roadside and village house. In China, it is not only widely wild, but also cultivated for medicine, vegetables or greening.
Ningxia Lycium barbarum: It evolved from the wild Lycium barbarum in northwest China, and the existing cultivated varieties can still be wild under suitable conditions. The early medicinal Lycium barbarum in China is the product of wild Lycium barbarum collected from northwest China, which has been recorded in medical books in Qin and Han Dynasties.
Sun Simiao, a famous medical scientist in the early Tang Dynasty, said in "A Thousand Daughters' Wings": Lycium barbarum is "the truth of Ganzhou (now Zhangye, Gansu), and its leaves are thick. Shen Kuo, a scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, recorded in Meng Qian Bi Tan: "Lycium barbarum, born at the extreme edge of Shaanxi Province, is taller and sweeter than others. "