Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Packsaddle, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Pods. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Packsaddle, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Packsaddle, about 180km north of Broken Hill, NSW

Common Name

Native Licorice, Southern Licorice

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Shrub from to 1m+ tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, strongly aromatic when crushed.  Leaves composed of 9-13 leaflets, each 1.5-2cm long, 2-8mm wide, linear to flat, sticky hairy, with hairy edges, and tips with short straight points.  Flowers mauve to purple.  Flowers pea-shaped, with five petals, two almost joined together, in long cylindrical racemes, the stalks arisng from the bases of the leaves.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 395

PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Glycyrrhiza~acanthocarpa