English name: the northwest origin of copyright roots

Latin name: licorice

Botanical name: licorice. Glycyrrhiza glabra

Plant morphology: licorice. Leguminosae, Glycyrrhiza inflata. Or licorice.

Dry roots and rhizomes of Glycyrrhiza glabra.

Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is a perennial herb in Leguminosae. In late autumn, the pods split, and the seeds walked on the land with the wind, naturally multiplying. The stem is straight and upright; Roots are cylindrical, three or four centimeters in diameter, five or six centimeters in size, more than one meter in length, and the longest is three or four meters.

Glycyrrhiza uralensis mostly grows in arid and semi-arid desert grassland, desert edge and loess hilly area, and it is also easy to breed in fields and floodplains in the Yellow River irrigation area. Strong adaptability and strong resistance, it is worthy of being an expert in drought resistance in the plant world and a pioneer in fighting sandstorms.

The characteristic root of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is cylindrical, with a length of 25 ~ 100 cm and a diameter of 0.6 ~ 3.5 cm. The skin has no elasticity. The surface is reddish brown or grayish brown, with obvious longitudinal wrinkles, furrows, lenticels and even fine root marks. Solid, slightly fibrous in section, yellow-white, silty, with obvious cambium ring, radial rays and some cracks. The rhizome is cylindrical, with bud marks on the surface and pith in the middle of the section. Slight breath, sweet, special taste.

Swelling licorice

Roots and rhizomes are thick and woody, some are branched, and the outer skin is rough, mostly taupe or taupe. Hard, with many wood fibers and small powder. Adventitious buds of rhizomes are numerous and thick.

Glycyrrhiza glabra

Roots and rhizomes are solid in texture, some of them are branched, the skin is not rough, grayish brown, and the lenticels are fine but not obvious.

Lao Guo-the king of all kinds of drugs

Licorice has been used as medicine for a long time. As early as more than two thousand years ago, Shennong Herbal Classic listed it as a good medicine. Tao Hongjing, a medical scientist in the Southern Dynasties, respected licorice as "the old man of the country" and said: "This grass is the king of many medicines, and there are very few people who don't use it in ancient books." "the country is old", that is, the name of the empire. The reason why Ural Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is regarded as the "imperial doctor" of medicine is just as Li Shizhen explained in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Among all the medicines, Ural Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is the king, treating 72 kinds of milk stone poisoning, solving 1,200 kinds of plant poisoning and reconciling various medicines, so it is called" the old country ".

According to the determination, the content of glycyrrhizic acid in licorice is about 10%, and there are many components such as mannitol and glucose. Because glycyrrhizic acid is 50 times sweeter than sucrose, licorice is really a "sweet grass".

Sweet and flat in nature. Heart, lung, spleen and stomach meridians.

Functions mainly include invigorating spleen and qi, clearing away heat and toxic materials, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, relieving pain and harmonizing various drugs. Can be used for treating spleen and stomach weakness, listlessness, palpitation, shortness of breath, cough with excessive phlegm, abdominal distension, acute pain in limbs, carbuncle, swelling and sore, and relieving drug toxicity.

Usage and dosage: 1.5 ~ 9g.

Note that it should not be used with Beijing spurge, Daphne genkwa and Gansui.

Store in a ventilated and dry place to prevent insects from eating.

Preparation of Glycyrrhiza extract

Excerpted from the National Collection of Chinese Herbal Medicine