Glycyrrhiza lepidota be sweet and were used as food and for medicinal purposes by Native Americans. After eating a roasted root in 1806, Meriwether Lewis described an "agreeable flavour not unlike the sweet pittaitoe." American licorice is not sweet from sugar but from glycyrrhizin. Glycyrrhizin may increase blood pressure (aka hypertension) by interfering with cortisol conversion. The Zuni people chew the root to keep the mouth sweet and moist. American licorice is grazed by cattle, but not preferred and will increase under grazing as competing plants are grazed off. The new growth can be toxic. It has light green to white flowers
Selection methods in plant breeding based on mode of reproduction species where normal mode of seed set is through a high degree of cross-pollination have characteristic reproductive features and population structure. Existence of self-sterility, self-incompatibility, imperfect flowers, and mechanical obstructions make the plant dependent upon foreign pollen for normal seed set. Each plant receives a blend of pollen from a large number of individuals each having different genotypes. Such populations are characterized by a high degree of heterozygosity with tremendous free and potential genetic variation, which is maintained in a steady state by free gene flow among individuals within the populations. In the development of hybrid varieties, the aim is