Glycyrrhiza glabraL.

cultivated licorice

WFO wfo-0000212813 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Glycyrrhiza glabra, photographed by Galyna Mykytynets
fig. a Galyna Mykytynets, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-08 / obs. 172581890

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
703906
Filed as
Glycyrrhiza glabra L.
Det. by
D. Isely 1980-01-01
Collected
A. H. Holmgren 1959-08-06
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 34 botanical countries

Regions where Glycyrrhiza glabra is native: Afghanistan, China North-Central, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Pakistan, Albania, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, East European Russia, Greece, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Ukraine AfghanistanChina North-CentralCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaMongoliaNorth CaucasusPalestineSaudi ArabiaTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanWest SiberiaXinjiangPakistanAlbaniaBulgariaCentral European RussiaEast European RussiaGreeceItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Glycyrrhiza glabra, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
Cyprus CYP
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Albania ALB EUROPE
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
East European Russia RUE
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Ukraine UKR
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 752 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.6 °C -3.4 °C 6.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.0 °C 28.8 °C 34.8 °C
Annual rainfall 276 mm 481 mm 756 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 80 mm 132 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 752 research-grade observations of Glycyrrhiza glabra that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 34 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Glycyrrhiza alalensis X.Y.Li
  • Glycyrrhiza alaschanica Grankina
  • Glycyrrhiza brachycarpa Boiss.
  • Glycyrrhiza echinata Lepech.
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra subsp. glandulifera (Waldst. & Kit.) Ponert
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. asperula Regel & Herder
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. brachycarpa (Boiss.) Boiss.
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. caduca X.Y.Li
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. echinata Regel & Herder
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. glabra
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. glandulifera (Waldst. & Kit.) Regel & Herder
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. glandulifera (Waldst. & Kit.) Galushko
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. glandulosa X.Y.Li
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. hispidula Regel & Herder
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. laxifoliolata X.Y.Li
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. pubescens Litv.
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. typica L.
  • Glycyrrhiza glabra var. violacea (Boiss.) Boiss.
  • Glycyrrhiza glandulifera Ledeb.
  • Glycyrrhiza glandulifera Waldst. & Kit.
  • Glycyrrhiza glandulifera var. parviflora Ledeb.
  • Glycyrrhiza hirsuta Pall.
  • Glycyrrhiza hirsuta L.
  • Glycyrrhiza hirsuta var. echinata Regel & Herder

and 10 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.