Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/525

 LIQUORICE 519 but on account of its want of durability can only be used for interior work ; hence it has but little value as a timber tree, and it is a very poor fuel. A decoction of the bark is used as a domestic remedy in diarrhoea and other cases requiring astringents ; the leaves of the tree, according to Porcher, contain large amounts of tannic and gallic acid, and their employment in tanning has been suggested. The generic name, which is a mongrel com- pound of Latin and Arabic, means liquid am- ber, and has reference to an exudation resem- bling storax, which is only developed in the tree in warm climates. (See BALSAMS.) The chief utility of the tree is in its ornamental character ; and for planting for decorative pur- poses it is in some respects not excelled by any other native of our forests. When crowded by other trees, it is drawn up with a straight trunk and presents but little beauty ; but where it has room to properly develop itself, it forms a fine, broad, rounded head like a maple, and with its bright, clean, star-shaped leaves is a most attractive object. Its greatest beauty is however seen in autumn ; its foliage in ripening assumes various pleasing tints, ul- timately becoming a dark purplish red or crim- son, and adding essentially to the brilliancy of the autumn landscape. The tree is readily raised from seed, but cannot be successfully transplanted from the forest unless taken when very young. LIQUORICE, or Licorice, a medicinal article derived from plants belonging to the genus glycyrrMza (Gr. yAu/cff, sweet, and tCa, & root), commonly from the G. gldbra, and probably a portion is furnished by G. echinata. A species, G. lepidota, is found on the shores of Lake Erie, but more abundantly further west, which has in a measure the taste of the foreign plant. The glycyrrhizas are herbaceous plants of the natural order leguminosce, having erect stems 4 or 5 ft. high, with few branch- es, leaves alternate, pinnate ; flowers violet or purple, formed like those of the pea, and ar- ranged in axillary spikes on long peduncles. The fruit is a smooth or bristly pod, with one to four small kidney-shaped seeds in a single cell. The root, which is perennial, attains the length of several feet, and is sometimes more than an inch in diameter. When three years old it is dug, and when cleansed and dried is ready for the market, in which state it is known as liquorice root or stick liquorice. The extract of liquorice, sometimes called in commerce Spanish juice, and popularly known as ball liquorice, is prepared by boiling the root with water; the saturated decoction is then decanted off and evaporated to proper consistence for forming the substance into cyl- inders 5 or 6 in. long and an inch in diameter. These, packed in cases with bay leaves, are the extract of liquorice of commerce. It is dry and brittle, of shining fracture, of sweet and peculiar taste, and, if pure and genuine, entirely soluble in water. This, however, is rarely the case, for the article is subject to gross adultera- tions. The Spanish liquorice is frequently nothing else than a mixture of the juice with the worst kind of gum arabic, called Barbary gum. Metallic copper scraped off the evaporating pans is very frequently present; and starch and flour sometimes constitute nearly one half of the substance. These adulterations Dr. Hassall found extended to the different kinds of roll and pipe liquorice, and Pontefract lozenges, which last, made near the town of that name, are usually considered as presenting a very pure form of the extract. Liquorice is refined by dissolving the impure extract in water without boiling, separating the insoluble matters and also the acrid oleo-resinous portions which by long boiling were extracted from the root, and reforming the article in cylinders of the size of pipe stems. But in the place of the sub- stances removed others are commonly intro- Liquorice Plant (Glycyrrhiza glabra). duced, as sugar, flour, starch, and gelatine. The most important proximate principles found in liquorice are : 1, glycyrrhizine or glycione, a glucosite (X^sHaeOis, or CieHiaOe), a trans- parent yellow substance, of a sweet taste, but distinct from sugar, scarcely soluble in cold but exceedingly so in boiling water, with which it gelatinizes on cooling; 2, a crystallizable principle identical with asparagine ; 3, a brown acrid resin. Besides these, it contains starch, albumen, extract of gum, salts, &c. Glycyr- rhizine is present, according to Dr. Hassall, in the fresh root, the undecorticated powder, and the decorticated powder, in the respec- tive percentages of 8*60, 10-40, and 13*0, and the pure extract should contain 10 to 15 per cent. The commercial extracts vary more or less from this. Liquorice is used in med- icine chiefly as a demulcent, especially in affections of the bronchial tubes, and also to