yashtimadhu :

Morphology:

It is a hardy herb or undershrub; the leaves are multifoliolate, imparipinnate; the flowers are in axillary spikes, papilionaceous, lavender to violet in colour; the pods are compressed and contain reniform seeds. The rootstock, which is stout, throws off a large number of perennial roots. The dried, peeled or unpeeled underground stems and roots constitute the drug known in the trade as Licorice.

Leaves, stem and root:

The plant is a herbaceous perennial. It is 1 to 2 m high and has a long sturdy primary taproot.

The taproot is 15 cm long and subdivides into 3 to 5 subsidary roots, 1.25 m in length.

There are several horizontal woody stolons which may reach 8 m.

New stems are produced every year.

They are sturdy, erect, branched either from the base or from further up, and are generally rough at the top.

The foliage leaves are alternate, odd pinnate and 10 to 20 cm long.

The leaflets are in 3 to 8 pairs.

The stipules are very small and drooping.

Flower and fruit:

The axillary inflorescences are upright, spike-like and 10 to 15 cm long.

The individual flowers are 1 to 1.5 cm long, bluish to pale violet and short-pedicled.

The calyx is short, bellshaped and glandular-haired.

The tips of the calyx are longer than the tube, and are pointed lanceolate.

Petals are narrow, the carina petals are not fused, and they are pointed but not beaked.

The fruit is a pod, 1.5 to 2.5 cm long, and 4 to 6 mm wide.

It is erect and splayed, flat with thick sutures, glabrous, somewhat reticulate-pitted, and usually has 3 to 5 brown, reniform seeds

Histology:

Transverse section of stolon more or less rounded. Phellem severeal layered with tabular cells; outer layers filled with reddish brown contents, inner colourless. Phellogen indistinct; phelloderm three to five layered, collenchymatous; some of the cells contain calcium oxalate and minute starch grains. Secondary phloem with numerous concentrically arranged bundles of phloem fibres and surrounded by a parenchymatous sheath containing prisms of calcium oxalate. Medullary rays distinct, bi-to multiseriate, parenchymatous, in continuation with those of xylem. The rays are narrower in xylem and wider in phloem region. Xylem consists of vessels, fibres and lignified wood parenchyma. The unpeeled drug shows the presence of polyhedral tubular brownish cork cells. In case of stolons, the pith is present and is parenchymatous. The root is characterized by the presence of tetrarch xylem and absence of pith.

Powder: It shows plenty of starch grains, hexagonal crystals vessel elements are with reticulate wall pitting."