Hedgerow shrub, 5-petalled blue flowers

[Camilo]

can anyone identify this plant? It was in a hedgerow on chalky soil in Cambridgeshire on 17 July

[aeshna5]

Looks like Duke of Argyll's Teaplant, Lycium barbarum.

[Tiggrx]

I wonder if it could be Chinese Teaplant (Lycium chinense). Not easy to tell from Duke of Argyll's Teaplant but the leaves on your specimen look too broad for that species.

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by Tiggrx

I wonder if it could be Chinese Teaplant (Lycium chinense). Not easy to tell from Duke of Argyll's Teaplant but the leaves on your specimen look too broad for that species.

That did cross my mind + you may be right.

[Dorts]

Not easy to tell these two apart. Having grown L. barbarum, I know to my cost, that it has long, sharp thorns. Does L. chinense?

Stace states, quite rightly, that these two species L. barbarum and L. chinense are very similar and much confused and suggests that L. chinense is probably much rarer.

It's L. barbarum that produces the 'Super Healthy Fruit', the Goji Berry.
Dorts.

[AlanS]

The latest edition of 'Stace' includes photographs by Arthur Chater, who has looked into these recently, and on the basis if leaf-shape and flower veining, Camilo's photograph clearly fits L. barbarum.

My own feeling is that with one exception, all naturalised Lycium bushes I have ever seen are L. barbarum, irrespective of leaf width. It used to be recognised that it was a common error to misidentify broad-leaved forms of L. barbarum as L. chinense, but in recent years the "error" has become the common view, though Chater's work has now restored what seems to be the correct interpretation of these names.

My one exception was a bush that was established in Richmond, Surrey, many years ago (I assume now gone). This bush not only had broad leaves, broadest below the middle, but the leaf colour was noticably a brighter green. At a distance it looked more like Garden/Japanese Privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium). This was so obviously different from L. barbarum that I have assumed it to be the true L. chinense ever since. Unless there is a third Lycium, I continue with this assumption.

Sometime perhaps I shall have a look through Chinese material in the Edinburgh herbarium to see if this gives any further insights. In the meantime, my vote in this thread is emphatically for L. barbarum.

Alan

[Camilo]

Many thanks to you all. I had also asked DEFRA for an opinion (albeit with only a written description) and they concur, today, that it is Lycium barbarum. And now I've been able to find it in Marjorie Blamey's book!

Great work, best wishes.