Ligusticum grayi

Gray's licorice root

Family: Apiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Gray's licorice root is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern High Sierra Nevada, Sierra Nevada, and Modoc Plateau in wet soil of subalpine meadows and conifer forests at elevations of 1,000 to 3,300 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces small white to cream-colored flowers in delicate compound umbels with 5 to 18 unequal rays. Growing 20 to 80 centimeters tall with a glabrous (smooth) stem, it develops a robust structure with large, intricately divided leaves. Its leaves are complex, featuring 2-pinnate or ternate-pinnate blades up to 25 centimeters long, with leaflets 1 to 4 centimeters in length, each deeply lobed with narrow, acute segments. The fruit is a small oblong-ovate structure 4 to 5 millimeters long, with narrowly winged ribs and 3 to 5 oil tubes per rib-interval.

Habitat: Wet soil of subalpine meadows, conifer forest

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: 1000-3300 m

Bioregions: KR, CaRH, SNH, MP

California counties: Tulare, Mariposa, San Diego, Alpine, Fresno, Mono, El Dorado, Plumas, Tuolumne, Placer, Siskiyou, Trinity, Madera, Nevada, Sierra, Mendocino, Modoc, Butte, Amador, Del Norte, Tehama, Lassen, Sonoma, Shasta, Humboldt, Calaveras, Glenn

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.