+ i eis igleeicnt re, elie ais ita email ate aia eimai 
eLycrrrniza cLaBsra. ORD, XXIV. Papilionacee. 44 
supplied with a tapering style, terminated by a blunt stigma: the 
seeds are small, kidney-shaped, and produced in a pod, which is ~ 
oblong, compressed, pointed, one-celled. i flowers appear 1n 
Insieugh ; 
Liquorice is a native of the South of Europe: it appears to have 
been.cultivated in Britain in the time of Turner.* The chief places 
at which it has long been propagated for sale, are Pontefract in 
Yorkshire, Worksop in Nottinghamshire, and Godalming in Surry ; 
but it is now planted by many gardeners in the vicinity of London, 
by whom the metropolis is supplied with the roots, which, after 
three years growth, are dug up for use, and are found to be in 
no respects inferior for medical purposes to those produced in 
their native climate. 
. Liquorice root, lightly boiled in a little water, gives out nearly 
all its sweetness: the decoction, pressed through a strainer, and 
inspissated with a gentle heat till it will no longer stick to the 
fingers, affords a better extract than that brought from abroad, 
and its quantity amounts to near half the weight of the root.* 
Rectified spirit takes up the sweet matter of the Liquorice equally 
with water; and as it dissolves much less of the insipid mucila- 
ginous substance of the root, the spirituous tinctures and extracts 
are proportionably sweeter than the watery. 
This root contains a great quantity of saccharine matter,* joined 
with some proportion of mucilage; and hence has a viscid sweet 
taste. | From the time of Theophrastus* it has been a received 
* Vide Tourn. Herd. part. 2. fol. 12. published in 1562. 
» If the Liquorice be long boiled, its sweetness is greatly impaired, and the — 
paration contracts an ungrateful bitterness and black colour. 
* Lewis, M. M. 
* This matter, according to Lewis, differs from oe of other vegetables, “in — 
being far less disposed to run into fermentation.” 
4 Hence it was named 2da)ov, and the reot directed to be chewed in dropsies and 
other disorders where great thirst prevailed, - Vide Theoph. L. 9. cap. 13. Also 
noticed by Pliny, Lib, 22, c. 9- 
No. 36.—vot, 3. ao 
