Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center


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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

28. Fabaceae, the Bean Family

3. Glycyrrhiza L. -- Licorice

1. Glycyrrhiza lepidota Pursh -- Wild licorice

Perennial herb 3-10 dm tall, from long creeping rhizomes, often forming patches, puberulent or glabrous, glandular-punctate with yellowish or brownish translucent glands; stem simple below, woody at the base, usually with short lateral branches above. Leaves pinnate, mostly 8-18 cm long including the rather short petiole; leaflets 7-21, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate or seldom elliptic, 1.5-5 cm long, 5-16 mm wide, often smaller on later developed leaves, apiculate, glandular-punctate on both surfaces; petiolules mostly 1-2 mm long; stipules brownish, lanceolate, 3-7 mm long, deciduous. Racemes axillary, spikelike, many-flowered, on peduncles 1-7 cm long; bracts deciduous, breaking off to leave the cupulate base; pedicels 1 mm or less long. Calyx tubular-campanulate in the lower half, 5-6 mm long, glandular-stipitate on the outside, the upper 2 lobes united for 1/2 or more of their length; petals cream or creamy white, the standard 10-14 mm long, wings and keel shorter; stamens 10, diadelphous in a 9 + 1 arrangement. Fruits brown, indehiscent, ellipsoid, 1-2 cm long, densely covered with hooked bristles, the style usually persistent as a terminal beak ca. 3 mm long. Flowering Jul--Aug, fruiting late Jul--Sep., the fruits commonly persisting into late fall. Shores, stream banks, wet meadows, floodplains, moist prairies, ditches and drier habitats; common; (MN to Alta. and WA, s to AR, TX and CA).
GIF- Distribution Map

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Page Last Modified: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 11:46:35 EDT
Menlo Park, CA [caww55]