142 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



SECTION 



Liquorice Plant. 

 Glycyrrhiza Glabra. Linn. 



The genus of glycyrrhiza has four species. The glabrous, or that 

 which produces the liquorice of the shops, has a long, thick, creep- 

 ing root, striking several feet deep into the ground ; upright, firm, 

 herbaceous, stalks annual, and three or four feet high, With 

 winded leaves of four or five pairs of oval lobes, terminated by an 

 odd one; and from the axillas erect spikes of pale blue \ flowers in 

 July or August, succeeded by short smooth pods. 



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 na- 

 tive climate. 



Liquorice root, lightly boiled in a little water, gives out nearly all 

 its sweetness : the decoction, pressed through a strainer, and inspis- 

 sated with a gentle heat till it will no longer stick to the fingers, af- 

 fords a better extract than that brought from abroad, and its quan- 

 tify amounts to near half the weight of the root f- Rectified spirit 

 takes up the sweet matter of the liquorice equally with water; and 

 as it dissolves much less of the insipid mucilaginous substance of the 

 root, the spirituous tinctures aiid extracts are proportionably sweeter 

 than the watery J. 



This root contains a great quantity of saccharine matter, joined 

 with some proportion of mucilage ; and hence has a viscid sweet taste. 



* Vide Town. Herb, part 2. fol. 12. published in 1562. 



t If the liquorice be long boiled, its sweetness is greatly impaired, and the 

 preparation contracts an ugnrateful bitterness and black colour. 



% Lewis, M.M. 



\ This matter, according to Lewis, differs from that of other vegetables, u in 

 being far less disposed to run into fermentation." L. c. 



