Medicinal Herbs

Vietnamese Licorice (Sweet Broomweed) Extract

Scoparia dulcis

Vietnamese licorice (Scoparia dulcis), cam thảo nam in Vietnamese, is an upright herb of thirty to eighty centimetres, woody at the base and rising from a stout cylindrical root. Its lance-shaped or oval leaves, toothed on the upper half, sit in opposite pairs or in threes, and small white flowers open singly or in pairs in the leaf axils through the summer, followed by little capsules full of seed. A pantropical plant, it grows everywhere in Vietnam on waste ground, along roadsides and on the edges of fields, and can also be sown from seed. The whole plant is lifted, washed and dried, or used fresh. It tastes sweet.