LIQUORICE. 93 



Description. — The root is perennial, long", cylindrical, branched, 

 far spreading", about the thickness of a finger, reddish-brown ex- 

 ternally, yellow and juicy within. The stems are erect, strong-, 

 smooth, branched, pale-green, and attain the height of three or 

 four feet and upwards. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, pinnate, 

 with from three to five pair of ovate, entire, obtuse leaflets, and a 

 terminal one; the whole of a pale-green colour, and somewhat 

 clammy beneath. The flowers are disposed in lax, axillary, spike- 

 like racemes. The calyx is persistent, tubular, divided obliquely 

 into two lips ; the upper of four rather unequal segments, the lower 

 simple and linear. The corolla is papilionaceous, pale purplish- 

 blue ; the vexillum or standard erect, lanceolate, concave ; the ala3 

 or wings, oblong", obtuse ; the carina or keel of tw r o distinct petals, 

 furnished with a claw as long" as the calyx. The filaments are ten ; 

 nine of them united at the base, tipped with simple roundish anthers. 

 The germen is short, with a filiform style and an obtuse stigma. 

 The fruit is a legume, smooth, oblong, compressed, acute, about an 

 inch in length, one-celled, containing three or four small, reniform 

 seeds.* Plate 30, fig. 3, (a) section of the root ; (6) pistil and 

 stamens ; (c) vexillum; (d) ala ; (e) keel; (/) legume. 



The Liquorice plant is a native of the south of Europe, Syria 

 and Persia, and is particularly abundant in moist situations, and 

 on the margins of rivers. It was first cultivated in England in 

 1558. It flowers from June to September. 



The generic name, from the Greek ykvxvppi^a, is compounded of 

 yAuxu$, sweet, and pi^ot, a root. Liquorice is said by Theis to be a 

 corruption of the French Reglisse, which is also corrupted from 

 Glycyrrhiza. Hippocrates mentions yXuxvp^oti and Theophrastus 

 yXvxsia. and o-kuQixy], but from the description given by Dioscorides,f 

 the plant used by the ancients would seem to be the Glycyrrhiza 

 echinata, which is very common in the East, and resembles 

 G, glabra in qualities, though said to be inferior to it. 



Culture, &c— "The soil most congenial to the growth of Liquorice is 

 a deep sandy loam, trenched to the depth of two-and-half or three feet, 

 and manured if necessary. The plants are procured from old planta- 

 tions, and consist of the side-shoots, which have eyes or buds. The 



* The seeds are never perfected, and the plant seldom flowers in this 

 country, 

 t Mat. Med. lib. iii. c. 17. 



