Wild licorice
Glycyrrhiza lepidota
Also called American licorice
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
A prairie pea with burred seed pods and a sweet root, common in river flats and ditches across this country.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Licorice root raises blood pressure and depletes potassium when taken regularly. Not for anyone with high blood pressure, heart or kidney trouble, and not in pregnancy.
- Learn the poisonous pea-family plants of this prairie before digging any pea-family root.
What it is confused with
Harmful look-alikeMilkvetch and locoweed Astragalus and Oxytropis species
The prairie has dozens of pea-family plants and several are poisonous to people and stock. Wild licorice is the one with hooked burr pods and a sweet root. If the pods are smooth or papery and the root is not sweet, it is not this.
How to know it
- Leaves
- Divided into eleven to nineteen narrow leaflets along a central stalk, dotted with tiny sticky glands.
- Pods
- Brown burrs covered in hooked prickles, clustered tight. They stick to everything and are the easiest way to know the plant in late summer.
- Flowers
- Creamy white to yellowish pea flowers in a dense spike.
- Root
- Long, running, and sweet when scratched.
The country it grows in
- Riverbanks and willow flats
- Open prairie
- Roadsides and disturbed ground
- Coulee slopes
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Roots September to OctoberAutumn, once the tops die back.
Right now it is July. Nothing on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Breathing and colds
- Stomach and digestion
- Food and drink
Root chewed for sore throats and coughs, and used as a sweetener.
How it is prepared
- Simmered
Root simmered into a sweet tea.
Licorice raises blood pressure with regular use. Not for anyone with high blood pressure or heart trouble, and not in pregnancy.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.