200 FLOWERS OF WASTE PLACES, ETC. 



sharp prickles it was recommended for " stitch " or pain in the side. 

 The achenes are large and contain oil, formerly used for emulsion, 

 and have also been used as food for goldfinches and other birds. 



The plant was formerly cultivated, the young leaves being used 

 as a salad in spring, or boiled. The young stalks were peeled, and 

 soaked in water to make them less bitter. The second spring the 

 root is eaten like salsify, and the receptacle is pulpy, tasting (and being- 

 eaten) like artichokes. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



173. Silybum marianum, Gaertn. Stem stout, rigid, branched, 

 leaves oblong, wavy, amplexicaul, with white veins, sessile, glabrous, 

 flowerheads purple, involucral spines recurved, appressed below. 



Chicory (Cichorium Intybus, L.) 



Like other cultivated or casual plants, our knowledge of its range 

 and age is derived from its present-day distribution in Europe. 

 N. Africa, Siberia, N.W. India. In America it is only an introduction. 

 In Great Britain it is found throughout the Peninsula, Channel, Thames, 

 Anglia, Severn provinces. In S. Wales it is absent from Brecon, 

 Radnor; in N. Wales from Montgomery and Merioneth. It is found 

 throughout the Trent province, but not in the Mersey provinces, the 

 H umber, Tyne, and Lakes provinces. It is rare in England, im- 

 probably native in Scotland, Ireland, and the Channel Islands. 



Chicory is a casual plant which is always more or less a follower of 

 man, being associated with weeds of cultivation. Sometimes it is 

 found in towns, in areas fenced in as building plots, or in a cornfield, 

 or perchance a fowl-run in an orchard. 



This beautiful wild flower has a thick, yellow, milky, spindle-shaped 

 root. The stem is rough, tall, rigid, wiry, twig-like, woody, with wide- 

 spreading and ascending branches. The lower leaves have lobes each 

 side of a stalk, turned backwards, slightly rough; the stem-leaves are 

 smooth or nearly so, alternate, lance-shaped, clasping, entire, and 

 axillary, paired, and more or less stalkless. 



The flowerheads are of a beautiful blue colour, open in sunshine, 

 but soon fading. They are stalkless, paired, borne in the axils of the 

 upper leaves, or terminal. Linnaeus said they opened at 5 and closed 

 at 10 at Upsala. Kerner, at Innsbruck, found them open at 6-7, closing 

 at 2-3 p.m. The involucre is double, with lance-shaped phyllaries, 

 broad at the base, and the outer ones are covered with a glandular 

 fringe of hairs. 



