Dunalia spinosa, known in Quechua as t'anqar, is a rugged, multi-stemmed shrub that thrives across the arid valleys and sun-drenched mountain scrublands of the central Andes from Peru through Bolivia to northern Chile. Its specific epithet spinosa directly highlights the formidable woody thorns, up to 5 centimeters long, that arm its branches against browsing animals.
Belonging to the nightshade family (Solanaceae), the species was first described in 1834 by the Prussian physician and botanist Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen as Atropa spinosa, and later placed in the genus Dunalia by Carl Lebrecht Udo Dammer in 1913 in honor of the French botanist Michel Félix Dunal.
Growing between 1.6 and 2 meters tall, Dunalia spinosa branches heavily from the base to create an irregular, impenetrable thicket. Many of its lateral shoots modify into sharp, rigid woody spines that persist along the stems for years.
Typically flowers during the Andean wet season and early dry transition from December to May, depending on local rainfall.
In traditional Andean agroforestry, local farmers plant Dunalia spinosa along field perimeters to form dense, living thorny fences that protect crops from livestock while anchoring dry, erosion-prone hillside soils with its deep root system.
Within Andean folk medicine, preparations of the plant are used externally and internally to relieve toothaches, earaches, diarrhea, and postpartum discomfort, while the ripe berries have occasional local culinary uses.
Growing at elevations between 500 and 2,000 meters where rain may not fall for six to ten months at a stretch, Dunalia spinosa combines defensive architecture with high-altitude pollination engineering. Every structural feature of the shrub serves a dual purpose in the dry Andean scrub.
Once pollination is complete, the transition to bright orange, moisture-rich berries attracts fruit-eating birds that swallow the seeds and deposit them beneath other thorny perches across the valley.
Taxon Synonyms: Lycium meyenianum, Dunalia lycioides, Dunalia besseri, Dunalia angustifolia, Dunalia ramiflora, Lycioplesium meyenianum, Dierbachia ramiflora, Atropa spinosa
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