Finding Harmony: Licorice Plant Profile
Before I began my formal herbal studies, I thought that all herbal tea (i.e. the prepackaged stuff you could only find at specialty health food stores when I was a kid) had a distinct and similar herbal taste. That herbal taste was, in fact, Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), a herb whose flavor remains a popular choice for herbal teas since it can mask less pleasant bitter notes in everything from digestive blends to cold care brews.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of the Licorice taste as a kid, it’s now become a nostalgic flavor for me, remind me of my early days of trying to get to know plants as a yet-to-be herbalist. Even better, Licorice is become a reliable plant ally in my apothecary, it’s easy sweetness offering all kinds of healing gifts.
So, friends, let’s explore the lovely path of Licorice, it’s abilities to harmonize any herbal blend it is added to, and the many ways it uses its gift of sweetness to bring about healing.
image via daderot
Licorice
(Glycyrrhiza glabra)
Common + Folk Names : Liquorice, black sugar, grandfather herb, honeygrass, lacers, sweet root, sweetwood, orozuz, ragaliz, lycorys
Element : Water, Earth
Zodiac Signs : Carries the energy of Taurus, Gemini, and Virgo. A remedy for Capricorn.
Planets : Mercury, Venus, Jupiter
Moon Phase : All Moon Phases
Tarot Cards : The Magician, the Hermit, Two Cards, the Suit of Cups, the Suit of Pentacles (learn more about the connections between the tarot and herbs)
Parts used : Roots
Habitat: Native in South and North America, Australia, and Eurasia.
Growing conditions : Sun to partial shade with salty, alkaline soil and moderate watering.
Collection : Harvest the two year old roots in the fall.
Flavor : Sweet
Temperature : Neutral to cooling
Moisture : Moist
Tissue States : Dry/Atrophy primarily, but all tissues states generally
Constituents : B-complex vitamins, choline, phosphorous, potassium, glycosides, saponins, phytoestrogens, flavonoids, amines, essential oils.
Actions : Adrenal tonic, alterative, antacid, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antitumor, antitussive, antiviral, aperient, aphrodisiac, demulcent, emollient, expectorant, febrifuge, galactogogue, hepatoprotective, immunomodulator, nutritive, pectoral, phytoestrogenic, sedative, tonic.
Main Uses : Before I met Licorice as a medicinal plant, I knew them as an overpowering flavor of candy that mostly the older people in my life seemed to like. Later on it became a flavor that I associated with vaguely hippy types in the northeast who seemed to love prepackaged herbal teas with Licorice as a primary ingredient (and I loved that I was invited over for tea). When I began my herbal studies in earnest, Licorice was introduced to me as a harmonizing herb that could pull together all the other herbs in a blend into a powerful and effective remedy.
A predominant herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine for its harmonizing gifts and inherent sweetness, Licorice also shows up in Ayurvedic tradition prizes as a rasayana or restorative herb that improves overall mental and physical health Within traditional western herbalism, Licorice is considered an adaptogenic herb with resonance to the immune and digestive system. Licorice has been used within the traditional western herbalism materia medica with Hildegard von Bingen noting the herb is good not only for improving digestion and eyesight, but helps to calm and focus the mind.¹
Licorice is a fantastic ally when dealing with adrenal fatigue and its accompanying symptoms. Look for signs of fatigue, craving for sweets with elevated blood sugar levels, and a poor immune response. As an immunomodulator Licorice has a wonderful way of adapting to the needs of our immune system, helping to stimulate an under-responsive immune system or calming an overactive immune response. As a lung tonic, Licorice helps create a productive cough and clear out the airways with specific indications for dry coughs, wheezing, laryngitis, and bronchitis. The sweetness of Licorice helps make more bitter lung herbs like Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) or Elecampane (Inula helenium) more palatable in a respiratory tea. Cough drops with actual Licorice in them are great for helping with hoarseness, cough, and wheezing and are an old form of traditional western herbal remedy.
Licorice helps with a variety of indigestion symptoms (especially when the digestion is dry - look for signs of constipation and dry stools), including gas and constipation, as well as chronic conditions such as IBS, leaky gut, and Crohn’s disease. Carry bags of Licorice tea with you when you travel to help keep your digestion regular.
The herb is also a useful endocrine tonic, helping with cases of adrenal fatigue and general states of stagnation and lack of tone from muscular weakness to hypo- conditions like hypotension and hypoglycemia. When there seems to be overall weakness throughout multiple body systems, endocrine tonic herbs like Licorice might be helpful, as well as during times of hormonal change including menopause.
Licorice is antiviral and useful in cases of chronic viruses such as herpes and HIV as well as acute conditions like the ‘flu. Use Licorice to protect the liver from stress, viruses or damage by medication. As a restorative and adaptogenic herb, Licorice helps to bring us back into balance by building up our resiliency to stress, clearing out brain fog, and releasing tension brought on by an overactive mind. The flower essence of Licorice helps us to connect with the sweetness of life. Use with Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) flower essence to overcome the defensive habit to say that “everything’s fine” when it’s not.
Topically, Licorice can be used to create an eyewash for conjunctivitis. Use Licorice topically as a hair rinse for scalp health as well as to prevent hair loss. It makes a great mouthwash for gingivitis and canker sores. Add it to baths for rashes and itchy skin.
Magickal Uses : Licorice is an herb of love. Add it to charms and rituals meant to draw love to you and from within you. Create a wand from the stalk to use in rituals regarding love and fidelity. Chew on the root to bring about sweet words. Use in funerary rites to help the spirit of the dead pass swiftly and easily to the worlds beyond.
The Licorice Personality : Everyone at some point will lose the sense of sweetness in life which is why we’re lucky to have plant allies like Licorice around. It’s not a plant necessarily for deep depression (think about Sinapis arvensis instead) or the individual with the tortured smile (consider Agrimonia eupatoria), though it would be useful for both of those conditions. The primary gift of Licorice is sweetness and helping us feel like we are in harmony with life around us. For Licorice folk not only has sweetness felt hard to come by, but the feeling that they are part of life's sweetness has them starting to feel resentful or bitter. There can be a feeling of mild dissociation with life around them and their craving for sweetness might lead them to chasing or overindulging in superficial or short-lived sweetness in ways they don't like over something more sustainable. Licorice is a sweetness illuminator, helping folks to understand that the sweetness in life that is so multifaceted and so infused within and around them that even though our ability to feel connected to it might wax and wane, it is never fully gone. The gifts of Licorice folk, once they feel steady enough in their connection to life within and around them, is their ability to create sweet experiences and connections almost as if by magick.
Contraindications : Avoid during pregnancy and hypertension.
Drug interactions : Avoid with diuretics, laxatives, digoxin, anti-hypertensives, anti-coagulants, corticosteroids,, prednisolone, MAOIs, SSRIs. Use with caution with insulin and hypoglycemic medication.
Dosage : Standard dosage.
🌿
If you enjoyed the Licorice plant profile and would like to explore more, be sure to check out my Plant Allies Archive. You can also find my complete collection of plant profiles from all of my courses in The Plant Ally Library.
Whether it is through the sweetness of Licorice or another plant ally that speaks to your heart, I hope you find the harmony you’re seeking through the magick of connecting with our green kin.
This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎
📚
Footnotes
1. Hildegard Von Bingen and Priscilla Throop, translator, Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions/Bear Publishing, 1998), 24.
2. Nicholas Culpeper, and J. J. Pursell, Culpeper's Complete Herbal: A Compendium of Herbs and Their Uses, Annotated for Modern Herbalists, Healers, and Witches (Portland, OR: Microcosm Publishing, 2022), 171.
