Wild Licorice

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