Lycium barbarum Amber Sweet

Lycium barbarum Amber Sweet® is a new variety of Goji with large, yellow fruits and a very pleasant sweet flavour, whose nutritional value is just as interesting as that of wild berries. The deciduous bush bears pink flowers in spring, followed by fleshy fruits that ripen from August to October. Perfectly hardy, it can be grown in ordinary soil, in full sun. Goji berries have medicinal properties known for millennia and are exceptionally rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Goji (Lycium barbarum), also known as Chinese wolfberry or common wolfberry, belongs to the Solanaceae family, just like tomatoes and potatoes. It is a deciduous bush whose origin is controversial. It has long been considered to come from China, but recent research has shown that it could be native to the Mediterranean basin, which is suggested by the species name 'barbarum', which was associated in Linnaeus' time with North Africa. The cultivar 'Amber Sweet' (synonym Huang Se Medlar), obtained in China, was introduced to the horticultural market in 2016.

The common wolfberry is a woody bush with an upright, spreading, ramified habit, reaching 1.5 to 3 metres (4 feet 11 inches to 9 feet 10 inches) in height at maturity, depending on the growing conditions. Its growth is moderately fast. The numerous branches are flexible and trailing, equipped with a few long sharp thorns. The foliage is deciduous, thick, leathery, fairly bright green in juvenile leaves, evolving to greenish-grey in mature leaves. The flowering, very honey-producing and nectar-producing, takes place from June to July, in the form of small 10mm (0.4in) star-shaped tubes, pink-purple in colour for this 'Amber Sweet' variety. It is followed by the formation of yellow-amber berries at maturity. It is preferable to consume the fruits when fully ripe, even though the pulp does not contain any toxic alkaloids for human consumption. The 'Amber Sweet' Goji berries are slightly larger than those of the wild species, but above all, particularly sweet and pleasant to eat both fresh and dried. The rooting of this bush is superficial.

This small fruit is rich in carbohydrates and proteins, low in lipids. It contains calcium, potassium, iron, selenium, vitamins E, B2, beta-carotene (which gives it its orange colour), and vitamin C (which makes iron particularly assimilable by our body). The pulp of the wolfberry has been the subject of numerous studies in recent years, which tend to prove that it has an antioxidant action.

The 'Amber Sweet' Goji integrates perfectly into the ornamental garden. It is a beautiful bush that can be included in a country hedge, alongside currants and flowering shrubs, or trained with thornless garden blackberries. As it is quite resistant to drought and very hardy, it can be planted anywhere in France, from North to South, and will adapt to the climate. It will simply be more productive if the soil is rich and remains moist.

In France, three species of Lycium can be found growing in the wild: Lycium europeanum, Lycium chinense, and our Lycium barbarum. Two of them are native to southern Europe, and L. chinense was brought from East Asia. The latter has naturalized in many places. Wolfberries were used in Roman and Greek pharmacopoeias, fell into oblivion, and then reappeared in the form of 'Goji berries' in the late 1990s, when China opened up to the world and experienced rapid development.