Bristly Licorice

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Bristly licorice is one of the plants of a family called legumes, in Latin the name of this plant will sound as follows: Glycyrrhiza echinata L. As for the name of the family of licorice bristly, in Latin it will be like this: Fabaceae Lindl. (Leguminosae Juss.).

Description of bristly licorice

Bristly licorice is a perennial herb, endowed with open or raised stems. The height of such a plant will fluctuate between fifty and one hundred and thirty centimeters. Leaves of licorice bristly are petiolate and they are endowed with three to six pairs of leaves. Such leaves, in turn, will be either obovate or elliptical in shape, at the very base they are narrowed, and at the apex they are most often endowed with a short cusp, while the length of the leaves will not exceed forty-five millimeters. The bracts of this plant will be lanceolate and early decaying. The inflorescence itself is almost spherical, dense and capitate. The length of bristly licorice flowers reaches ten millimeters, they will be almost sessile and painted in violet-blue tones. The calyx, in turn, is endowed with rather wide teeth, and the beans will be tightly bored, elliptical or ovoid in shape, they are located in dense spherical heads, in the upper part they are densely settled by means of spines, and the length of such beans will not exceed sixteen millimeters.

Blossoming of bristly licorice occurs in the second half of the summer period. Under natural conditions, this plant is found in the Crimea, the Caucasus, Moldova, the Dnieper region and the Carpathians in Ukraine, the Verkhnetobolsk region of Western Siberia, as well as the following regions of the European part of Russia: Lower Volga, Prichernomorsky, Zavolzhsky, Lower Don and Verkhnedonsky. For growth, licorice bristle prefers meadows, river and river valleys, banks of ditches, oxbows and lakes, as well as the edges of fields.

Description of the medicinal properties of licorice bristly

Licorice bristly is endowed with very valuable healing properties, while for medicinal purposes it is recommended to use the roots and herbs of this plant. Grass includes flowers, stems and leaves. The presence of such valuable healing properties should be explained by the content of carbohydrates and related compounds in the roots of this plant: pectins, mannitol, sucrose, glucose, starch, spol, medicarpin pterocarpans, flavonoids of vestitol, liquiditin and liquiditenin, nitrogen-containing compounds, organic acids of tartaric, malic, succinic, fumaric, oxalic and citric, triterpenoids in the hydrolyzate of isoequinic, echinic, isomacesonic and macedonic acids.

Actually, it should be noted that the roots of licorice bristly were used similarly to the roots of licorice naked. Such medicinal agents are used as expectorant and enveloping agents for various respiratory diseases. A decoction based on the roots of licorice bristly is indicated for use in bladder cancer. In China, the root powder of this plant is used for carcinomatous wounds. It is noteworthy that during the experiment it was proved that the extract of the roots of this plant has the ability to manifest antifungal and antitumor activity, and the phenolic fraction will also exhibit antibacterial activity.

In Crimea, infusion and decoctions, prepared on the basis of the aerial part of bristly licorice, are used for dermatoses. A decoction based on the seeds of this plant is indicated for use in gastrointestinal colic. In addition, the roots of licorice bristly have the ability to stain tissues in red-brown and dirty yellow tones.