WEEDS OP THE CHICORY FAMILY. 



143 



nearly to the ovary, the five teeth at the end of the ray in the 

 dandelion flower representing the five united petals of the original 

 tube. Similar but usually much broader ray-flowers are found in a 

 circle around the head of tubular ones in many of the true Com- 

 posite. To the Chicory family belong about 30 species growing 

 wild in Indiana, among them being the dandelions, sow-thistles, 

 wild lettuce and hawkweeds. 



108. CICHORIUM INTYBUS L. Chicory. Wild Succory. (P. I. 2.) 



Stem stiff, much branched, 1-5 feet high, from a long deep tap-root; 



basal leaves spreading, spoon-shaped in outline, 3-6 inches long, narrowed 



at base, sharply cut-lobed, the segments 

 turned backwards ; upper ones much smaller, 

 oblong or lanceolate, partly clasping. Flow- 

 ering heads numerous, 1 inch or more broad, 

 1-4 together in sessile axillary and terminal 

 clusters ; flowers several, bright blue, rarely 

 white; pappus composed of 2 or 3 rows of 

 short blunt scales at the top of the black, 

 4-sided achenes. (Fig. 104.) 



Fig. 104. Spray of flowers, lower leaf and 

 root. (After Clark.) 



Frequent along roadsides and in pas- 

 tures, waste places and gardens in north- 

 ern Indiana ; scarce in the southern por- 

 tion. July-Sept. Occurs usually in 

 patches in dry soil, its blue flowers add- 

 ing a tinge of brilliant color along the 

 roadways, though usually closing by 

 noon. The endive or garden succory, a 

 closely related species, is in England said to open its petals at 8 

 o'clock in the morning and close them at 4 in the afternoon, whence 

 the lines: 



"On upward slopes the shepherds mark 



The hour when, to the dial true, 

 Cichorium to the towering lark, 

 Lifts her soft eye, serenely blue." 



Although a vile weed where growing wild, chicory under culti- 

 vation is a plant of many uses. The Romans used it as a salad and 

 pot-herb and it is related that "the leaves of chicory are boiled in 

 potage or broths for sicke and feeble persons that have hot, weak 

 and feeble stomachs, to strengthen the same." In Europe at the 

 present time its young leaves when well blanched are much used 

 for salad; the tender roots when boiled and served with butter and 

 pepper are considered quite a delicacy, while the young leaves 

 when boiled as spinach, using two waters, rival those of spinach 



