Liquorice Root
Glycyrrhiza glabra
Liquorice root doesn't look as though it should be particularly sweet. Dried pieces are woody and fibrous, with brown bark surrounding a yellowish interior. There's nothing sugary about the appearance. Break a piece, though, and its distinctive character becomes much easier to find.
Much of that sweetness comes from glycyrrhizin, a naturally occurring compound considerably sweeter than sucrose. It develops underground in the roots and spreading stems of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a perennial member of the pea family. Above ground there's foliage, violet flowers and eventually fruit. For thousands of years, people have been considerably more interested in what's happening underneath.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Genus: Glycyrrhiza
Species: Glycyrrhiza glabra
Common Names: Liquorice, Liquorice Root, Licorice
Plant Form: Herbaceous perennial
Material: Dried roots and underground stems
Native Range: Southern Europe, the Mediterranean and western Asia
Most of the Interesting Part Is Underground
Above ground, Glycyrrhiza glabra can grow to around a metre tall. Its pinnate leaves are divided into numerous leaflets, while violet to pale blue flowers appear in upright clusters. Look closely at a flower and the family connection becomes clearer. Liquorice belongs to Fabaceae, alongside peas, beans and an enormous variety of other legumes.
The familiar root develops out of sight.
Thick roots extend into the soil while underground stems spread away from the parent plant, producing a substantial network over time. Plants are generally allowed several years of growth before these underground portions are harvested, cleaned and dried.
Whole roots can be kept as long sticks or chopped into smaller pieces. Cut across one and the contrast is useful for identification. The outer surface is brown and woody, while the fibrous interior is distinctly yellow.
It looks much more like a root than confectionery ever prepared us for.
Sweet, But Not Like Sugar
The name Glycyrrhiza comes from Greek words meaning sweet root, which is unusually straightforward as botanical names go.
Glycyrrhizin accounts for much of that sweetness. It's many times sweeter than ordinary table sugar, but the sensation isn't quite the same. Liquorice sweetness develops differently and tends to linger, accompanied by earthy, woody and slightly bitter notes from the root.
Numerous other compounds contribute to its flavour and aroma, while species, growing conditions and processing can alter the finished material.
There's also an easy source of confusion. Anise is frequently used to produce a liquorice like flavour despite coming from an entirely unrelated plant. Star anise can create a similarly familiar impression. Neither is liquorice.
Apparently several plants independently discovered roughly the same trick.
A Root with a Very Long Record
Liquorice has been used for long enough to appear in records from several ancient cultures. The root was known in ancient Egypt, while Greek and Roman writers also described it and its preparation.
Being a root probably helped it travel. Properly dried liquorice is considerably less fragile than flowers or leaves, and its distinctive sweetness remains within material that can be stored and transported for extended periods.
It continued to appear in European apothecaries through the medieval and early modern periods, eventually moving into confectionery as well as herbal preparations. The transition makes sense once you've tasted the root itself. Sweetness was already there. People simply found increasingly elaborate things to do with it.
Liquorice also has important histories within Asian medical traditions, but the species matter. Glycyrrhiza uralensis, for example, has a particularly significant place in East Asian herbal practice. Its history shouldn't automatically be transferred to G. glabra simply because both plants are called liquorice.
Attraction with a Little More Force
Roots have gathered extensive symbolism in folk practice, often drawing on their physical relationship with the ground, their durability and the fact that much of their growth happens unseen.
Liquorice has developed some rather specific associations of its own.
In contemporary folk and metaphysical practice, the root is commonly connected with attraction, influence, persuasion and gaining favour. Some traditions go further, associating it with command or control. That gives liquorice a noticeably different character from botanicals whose symbolism centres more straightforwardly on romance.
A rose may represent love. Damiana frequently leans towards desire. Liquorice can be about influence.
Those aren't inherent properties demonstrated by the plant's chemistry, and practices vary between traditions. They do give the root a distinctive place within modern botanical work, where it may also appear in preparations concerned with protection.
When “Liquorice” Isn't Specific Enough
The common name becomes less helpful once several dried roots are sitting beside one another.
Glycyrrhiza glabra is commonly known as true or European liquorice, but other species within the genus are also harvested and traded for their roots. G. uralensis is one prominent example. Once roots have been chopped and dried, distinguishing species by appearance becomes considerably harder.
Then there are the unrelated plants borrowing the flavour. Anise and star anise can both be described as liquorice scented despite belonging nowhere near Glycyrrhiza botanically.
It's a good example of why the scientific name earns space on an apothecary label. “Liquorice root” tells us what people call the material.
Glycyrrhiza glabra tells us what actually grew it.
Tougher Than It Looks
Dried liquorice is fairly forgiving compared with delicate leaves and flowers. Cut pieces retain their shape well, although the exposed ends can shed fibres and smaller fragments with repeated handling.
Moisture is more troublesome. A closed container somewhere cool, dry and away from direct sunlight helps preserve the root and its aromatic character. Proper drying before storage is especially important for dense botanical material.
The appearance naturally varies from piece to piece. Bark may be light or dark brown, cuts differ in thickness and the yellow interior can be more obvious in some than others.
There's little benefit in making it look uniform. Roots didn't grow to fit neatly into a jar.
In the Apotheca
Liquorice root is easy to underestimate beside more elaborate botanicals. There are no petals to preserve, no brilliant colour and nothing particularly unusual about a jar of chopped brown roots.
The surprise is inside them.
Break a piece and the pale yellow fibres appear. Moisten it and the sweetness becomes difficult to reconcile with something that looks so woody. Even the familiar liquorice flavour turns out to have a slightly complicated identity once anise, star anise and several Glycyrrhiza species enter the picture.
For a plant whose useful portion spent years out of sight, Glycyrrhiza glabra has become remarkably recognisable.
Just not necessarily by looking at it.
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