Wild Licorice

Glycyrrhiza lepidota Pursh.

Fabaceae (Legume Family)

▲  new sprouts from creeping roots

▲ young, mature plant

▲▼  mature flowering plants

▲ mature plant with flowers and young fruit

▲ stem and leaves, showing slightly winged leaf rachis'

▲▼ flowers, and flowers with young fruit

▲ mature, bur-like fruit

Wild Licorice:  (pp. 304-305, Weeds of the Great Plains—not in Weeds of the Northeast)

·         native creeping perennial plant with rhizomes found in moist prairies, pastures, rangeland, roadsides

·         produces mostly unbranched stems, 1-4 feet tall, with pinnately compound leaves; leaf rachis’ are slightly winged; leaflets are oval, pointed and olive-yellow-green to medium green

·         flowers are small, white to creamy-white, in terminal and axillary racemes

·         fruit is a bur-like pod that matures to a red-brown color

·         root is edible and has been used medicinally by native Americans

·         not very palatable to livestock and burs are irritating to them