''Lycium andersonii'' is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family,

Solanaceae Solanaceae (), commonly known as the nightshades, is a family of flowering plants in the order Solanales. It contains approximately 2,700 species, several of which are used as agricultural crops, medicinal plants, and ornamental plants. Many me ...

. Its common names include water-jacket, redberry desert-thorn,''Lycium andersonii''.
NatureServe. 2012. Anderson thornbush, Anderson's desert thorn,''Lycium andersonii''.
Calflora. Anderson boxthorn, Anderson lycium, Anderson wolfberry, and squawberry.Tesky, J. L. 1992

In: Fire Effects Information System. USDA, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. The species is native to the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

and northwestern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, where it is distributed in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

, and

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

. It grows in many habitat types and

plant communities A plant community is a collection or Association (ecology), association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The comp ...

, including pinyon-juniper woodland,

creosote bush scrub Creosote bush scrub is a North American desert vegetation type (or biome) of sparsely but evenly spaced desert plants dominated by creosote bush (''Larrea tridentata'') and its associates. Its visual characterization is of widely spaced shrubs th ...

sagebrush scrub Sagebrush scrub is a vegetation type (biome) of mid-to-high elevation Western United States deserts characterized by low-growing drought-resistant shrubs including the sagebrush ('' Artemisia tridentata'') and its associates.Karen Wiese, Sierra Ne ...

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...

, and

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...

. This plant is a

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

growing up to about in maximum height. It grows from a large fibrous root system which can extend over from the base of the plant. The shrub is rounded in shape with many branches covered in many thin spines up to long. The flat leaves are thick and fleshy, measuring up to long. They are shed from the plant in dry conditions. The flowers have funnel-shaped white or purple-tinged corollas up to a centimeter long. The fruit is a red or orange

berry A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples of berries in the cul ...

less than a centimeter long. This plant grows in sandy, gravelly washes and on slopes and

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge, or hill, bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and standing distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks, such as shales, capped by a ...

s. It tolerates some

soil salinity Soil salinity is the salt (chemistry), salt content in the soil; the process of increasing the salt content is known as salinization (also called salination in American and British English spelling differences, American English). Salts occur nat ...

and

alkaline soils Alkali, or alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico ...

such as

caliche Caliche () is a soil accumulation of soluble calcium carbonate at depth, where it precipitates and binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt. It occurs worldwide, in aridisol and mollisol soil orders—generally in arid or se ...

. It thrives in hot, dry climates. It is rarely dominant in the local flora. Common associates include

creosote bush ''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush, greasewood, and chaparral is a medicinal herb. In Sonora, it is more commonly called ''hediondilla''; Spanish ''hediondo'' = "smelly". It is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. The specific ...

(''Larrea tridentata''), yellow palo verde (''Parkinsonia microphylla''),

white bursage ''Ambrosia dumosa'', the burro-weed or white bursage, a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is a common constituent of the creosote-bush scrub community throughout the Mojave Desert of California, Nevada, and Utah and ...

, (''Ambrosia dumosa''),

smoke tree Smoke tree, or Smoketree, may refer to any of several plants, some of whose parts are finely divided and give the appearance of smoke from a distance: * ''Cotinus'', a genus of garden shrub commonly referred to as the Smoketree. ** ''Cotinus cog ...

(''Psorothamnus spinosus''), Nevada ephedra (''Ephedra nevadensis''), hop sage (''Grayia spinosa''), pale wolfberry (''Lycium pallidum''),

blackbrush ''Coleogyne ramosissima'' or blackbrush, is a low lying, dark grayish-green, aromatic,Turner, Raymond M. 1982. Great Basin desertscrub. In: Brown, David E., ed. Biotic communities of the American Southwest--United States and Mexico. Desert Plan ...

(''Coleogyne ramosissima''), singlewhorl burrobrush (''Hymenoclea monogyra''), and

Joshua tree ''Yucca brevifolia'' (also known as the Joshua tree, yucca palm, tree yucca, and palm tree yucca) is a plant species belonging to the genus '' Yucca''. It is tree-like in habit, which is reflected in its common names. This monocotyledonous tre ...

(''Yucca brevifolia''). It was named after Charles Lewis Anderson by

Asa Gray Asa Gray (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botany, botanist of the 19th century. His ''Darwiniana'' (1876) was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessaril ...

References

External links

Calflora Database: ''Lycium andersonii'' (Anderson Thornbush, Anderson's desert thorn, water jacket)''Lycium andersonii'' — U.C. Photo gallery
andersonii North American desert flora Flora of Arizona Flora of Baja California Flora of California Flora of Nevada Flora of New Mexico Flora of Sinaloa Flora of Sonora Flora of Utah Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Great Basin Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Natural history of the Colorado Desert Natural history of the Mojave Desert Natural history of the Peninsular Ranges {{Solanales-stub