Lycium
LYCIUM BARBARUM.--Box Thorn, or Tea Tree. North Asia, 1696. A pretty
lax, trailing shrub, with long, slender, flexible twigs, small
linear-lanceolate leaves, and rather sparsely-produced lilac or violet
flowers. Planted against a wall, or beside a stout-growing, open-habited
shrub, where the peculiarly lithe branches can find support, this plant
does best. Probably nowhere is the Box Thorn so much at home as in
seaside
places, it then attaining to sometimes 12 feet in height, and
bearing freely its showy flowers during summer, and the bright scarlet
or orange berries in winter.
L. EUROPAEUM.--European Box Thorn. South Europe, 1730. This is a spiny,
rambling shrub, that may often be seen clambering over some cottage
porch, or used as a fence or wall plant in many parts of England. It
often grows nearly 20 feet long, and is then a plant of great beauty,
with linear-spathulate leaves of the freshest green, and pretty little
pink or reddish flowers. For quickly covering steep, dry banks and
mounds where few other plants could exist this European Box Thorn is
invaluable. Either species will grow in very poor, dry soil, and is
readily propagated by means of cuttings.