The Widespread wolfberry or Barbary Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum) is a shrub of the Solanaceae household (comparable to tomatoes), widespread in southern Europe to Asia.

The lyciets who had been recognized in historic pharmacopoeia of the Greco-Latin world had been forgotten and it’s only a results of China’s improvement because the late Nineteen Nineties they had been returned below the commerce identify “bays goji. “

The Widespread wolfberry is one among two species Lycium giving purple fruits on sale in well being meals shops because the goji berry (Lycium chinense being the opposite). That is the richest of the 2 nutritional vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The very well-known in Asia fruits for his or her antioxidant properties are registered within the Chinese pharmacopoeia.

The time period goji was manufactured by a North American ethno-botanist, named Bradley Dobos, enthusiastic about Tibetan medication. In 1973, at a gathering medicinal crops within the Tibetan mountains, he determined, together with his Tibetan informant, to finish the imbroglio native identify qoiki, quak qou, kew ji forging the time period goji. The phrase started to unfold after the Eighties because of gross sales of its berries in a pharmacy and a clinic Tenzing Momo it opened in Seattle. However the worldwide success got here solely when the large producers Wolfberry Ningxia (China) determined to overcome international markets by making typically extravagant selling the advantages of goji berries.

The Chinese wolfberry is the frequent identify ningxia gouqi 宁夏 枸杞 morphologically “Wolfberry Ningxia” (northwestern province of China).

Description

The frequent Wolfberry is a shrub from 80 cm to three m excessive, very branching, flexuous to branches, hanging, a little bit prickly.

Solitary fibrous or leaves are lance-shaped or lengthy elliptic, 2-3 cm lengthy and 36 mm large.

The flower carried by a stalk has a campanulate calyx 4-5 mm, normally 2 lobes and a purple corolla with tube 8-10 mm and shorter lobes. Stamens and elegance barely exserted. Flowering lasts from June to September.

The fruit is a kind of orange-red berry, rectangular, growing candy taste barely bitter. They ripen from August to October.

Lycium barbarum grows within the cracks of the chalk cliffs of the Gironde, proper financial institution

The Widespread wolfberry is widespread within the southern and central Europe, northern Africa and southwest Asia and Central Asia. In China, there are seven totally different species of Lycium: Lycium chinense is essentially the most broadly used (all of China besides Tibet) whereas the Lycium barbarum barbarum var solely grows in Ningxia, Gansu, northern Hebei, Interior Mongolia, Qinghai , northern Shanxi, Sichuan and Xinjiang. In these components of the northwest, it’s also discovered Lycium ruthenicum, and L. truncatum. In Tibet itself (Xizang zizhiqu), we discover that L. ruthenicum.

Certainly, the species identify refers barbarum North Africa, known as the time of Linnaeus, prickly.

The Widespread wolfberry is grown for its edible berries over giant areas in China (primarily in Ningxia) for the Chinese market but in addition more and more for export to North America and Europe.

Launched within the UK in 1730 by the Duke of Argyll, it’s nonetheless used for hedges. It’s also used for this goal in North America and Australia.

Lycium barbarum

Leaves brown mustard (Brassica juncea) and goji berries braised Cantonese means

China has a protracted custom of use of useful meals to revive the elemental balances that regulate the stream of qi within the physique (outlined as a part of conventional Chinese medication).

To “strengthen the qi and nourish the liver and kidneys,” it’s advisable to eat the wolfberry fruit in soups, boiled with rice or in dishes of greens and rooster. It may also be brewed with tea or chrysanthemum flowers. As “tonic” can be a goji liqueur, obtained by macerating goji fruit and ginseng a fortnight within the white liquor.

Recipe soup of shrimp wolfberry:

Elements: shrimp, goji berries, onions, ginger and seasonings. Sauté in a little bit oil with chopped onion and pour the goji berries and boiling water, lastly add the shrimp. When the soup begins to boil add the seasoning, take away scum. Earlier than serving scatter of tiny chopped chives.

Medicinal makes use of

Wolfberry is a recognized medicinal plant and used for 2 thousand years in China. Solely the fruit of Lycium barbarum is acknowledged as pharmacies. The excellence on morphological or histological bases fruit of L. barbarum and L. chinense may be very tough, higher to make use of strategies of molecular evaluation for a dependable evaluation (comparable to RAPD).

In Chinese medication, the dried fruit is thought:

tone the kidney and essence (jing)

nourish the liver and enhance eyesight

Chinese natural treatment picture supply:http://www.cnwesthotline.com/west01/gp00.htm