Glycyrrhiza glabra Seeds | Liquorice Licorice
LATIN NAME: Glycyrrhiza glabra
COMMON NAME: Liquorice
Plant Profile
Chew a shred of raw liquorice root and the sweetness arrives slowly, then refuses to leave — the root’s signature compound, glycyrrhizin, is a triterpenoid saponin judged roughly fifty times sweeter than table sugar, with a lingering aftertaste that no quick sweetener can copy. That slow sweetness built an empire: Egyptian tomb offerings included liquorice root, Mongol horsemen carried it on long rides, and medieval European apothecaries ranked it among the medicines they could least afford to run out of. The plant behind all this is a humble, deep-rooted member of the pea family that looks, while flowering, like an unremarkable vetch.
Glycyrrhiza glabra grows as an upright perennial clump about a metre tall, carrying pinnate leaves with eleven to seventeen paired, oval leaflets that fold slightly in evening. From early summer the leaf axils push loose spikes of small, pea-shaped flowers in pale violet to bluish white, which bees work steadily; each is a standard papilionaceous legume flower with keel and wings, followed by flattened brown pods, mostly smooth in this species though hairier races occur in the wild, studded with glandular bristles that stick to fingers.
Liquorice farming is a long game measured in seasons of root growth, and it begins with soil that mimics a dry river valley: deep, loose, stone-free and never waterlogged.
Commercial stands are lifted in the third or fourth autumn, when the crown has sent out horizontal rhizomes that produce the finest sweet material. Dig a wide trench beside the row rather than pulling — snapped roots bleed and lose value. Wash, trim, and dry slowly out of sun until the root snaps cleanly with a bright yellow fracture. Plants left in place regrow from crown pieces, and rhizome cuttings are the fastest way to expand a patch without seed at all.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus contains several traded species, and buyers should know the difference. Chinese licorice is mostly G. uralensis, a close relative with its own pharmacopoeia entry, while the European confectionery trade built itself on G. glabra. Anise and star anise contain anethole, a different sweet compound altogether — anise-flavored confections that taste of licorice owe the similarity to aroma chemistry, not to the root. Botanical sourcing matters because the compound profile of each species, and even each variety, differs in measurable ways.
Phytochemists split the root’s portfolio into two headline families. Glycyrrhizin, the saponin, on hydrolysis releases glycyrrhetinic acid, a compound studied for anti-inflammatory and ulcer-research contexts since the mid-twentieth century — deglycyrrhizinated liquorice, with the saponin removed, exists precisely because the sweet molecule itself raises blood pressure when consumed heavily, a documented and well-understood side effect. The second headline compound is glabridin, an isoflavonoid found specifically in G. glabra and a frequent subject of skin-science literature, since it features prominently in antioxidant and skin-science assays and anchors the root’s cosmetic reputation.
Commercial extractors shred the dried roots and run counter-current hot-water extraction, then precipitate or spray-dry the concentrate; block liquorice — the dark, glossy solid once chewed as-is — is simply the concentrate poured into molds. Regulatory agencies on both sides of the Atlantic treat glycyrrhizin as a food ingredient with usage ceilings, which is why the industry has invested heavily in partially hydrolyzed and deglycyrrhizinated grades. Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of lipophilic fractions, including glabridin, has moved from laboratory curiosity to pilot-plant practice in recent decades.
Uses & Benefits
By the sixteenth century liquorice had reached Yorkshire, where the deep, workable soils around Pontefract proved ideal, and the town became England’s liquorice capital — stamped Pontefract cakes of pressed root paste were an English sweet for centuries, and the crop’s square-walled garden plots can still be traced beneath the town. In Italy, Calabria and Sicily built root-digging and extraction industries that still run; Spanish production centered on the dry interior; and in Russia and central Asia wild stands supported a long harvesting trade. Modern demand splits between confectionery and pharmaceutical-grade extract, and wild populations in some source countries now face pressure from over-digging, pushing cultivation into the foreground.
Confectionery is the visible use, but the root works quietly everywhere: brewers of porters and stouts have long added small amounts of liquorice root for body and head retention, tobacco blenders used it as a moisture-keeping casing, and traditional Chinese medicine pairs licorice root into more formulas than almost any other herb as a harmonizing ingredient. Cooks who grow their own can simmer sliced root into syrups for anise-style sweets, steep it as a tisane with chamomile, or grate a little into custards — moderation is the working rule, given the saponin load.
Growing from Seed
The hard seed coat demands a nick — rub seeds between two sheets of coarse sandpaper, or pour boiling water over them and let them soak as the water cools until they swell. Sow about a centimetre deep in spring, rows forty-five centimeters apart, thinning seedlings to roughly twenty centimeters once they show several true leaves. As a legume the plant fixes nitrogen with appropriate rhizobia; in fresh ground, gardeners often see stunted first-year plants until the soil nodulates, so a light compost feed beats nitrogen fertilizer. Water to establish, then barely at all — the deep taproot is the drought engine.
Our Take
Give liquorice depth of soil and freedom from wet feet, then forget it for three autumns — that is the whole craft. To explore the genus further, see the Glycyrrhiza uralensis seed profile on Chinese licorice, or the liquorice root page for the traded material itself. For another deep-rooted tonic legume that shares its bed preferences, read our Astragalus seed guide.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Liquorice: