PLANT: Annual or short-lived perennial herbs, sometimes turning woody with age, usually less than 1 m tall, without tubers or stolons, unarmed; herbage glabrous to pubescent to variously strigose; stems terete to angled, sometimes with small, antrorselycurved teeth on the angles. LEAVES: alternate or sub-opposite, simple, 2–9 cm long, 1–5 cm wide, ovate to lance-elliptic; margin entire to coarsely-toothed; base truncate to attenuate; apex broadly acute to acuminate; petiole (1–)2–6(–8) cm long. INFLORESCENCE: umbel-like racemes, lateral, borne between nodes or sometimes at nodes opposite leaves, (1–)3–8(–12)-flowered; peduncle 8–30 mm long. FLOWERS: actinomorphic (Fig. 3B); pedicel 2–12 mm long; calyx 1.5–2.5 mm long, the lobes lanceolate to rounded, about as long as to 1/4 the length of the tube; corolla rotate-stellate to reflexed, white or white tinged with purple, sometimes gland-dotted, sometimes with basal brownish star, 8–25 mm in diam.; style as long as stamens or up to 3 mm longer, pubescent ± half its length; stamens of ± equal length, (2.5–)3–4(–4.5) mm long; anthers connivent; filaments 1/5 or less as long as anthers, usually much less than 1 mm long. FRUITS: subglobose, 6–12 mm wide, green, orange-brown or blackish at maturity, not enclosed in the calyx; sclerotic granules 0–5; seeds orbicular, minutely pitted, 1–1.6 mm wide. NOTES: Agricultural weeds also found in waste places and riparian areas: All cos. exceptApache (Fig. 1D); 50–2500 m (~200–8000 ft); throughout the year; s. U.S. from AL to CA; Mex.; probably native to N. Amer. REFERENCES: Chiang, F. and L.R. Landrum. Vascular Plants of Arizona: Solanaceae Part Three: Lycium. CANOTIA 5 (1): 17–26, 2009.