50 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



in some organ of the plant that is of most economic or 

 medicinal value. In the case of the present plant we 

 could well imagine that the long tapering root, a feature 

 conspicuous in itself, and a part of the plant of considerable 

 value, would influence the choice of a name for the herb. 

 The other name, chicory, is, under one modification or 

 another, of widespread range. We see this in its Latin 

 name cichorium ; in France it is chicoree ; in Spain, 

 achicoria; in Portugal, ckicoria; in Italy, cicorea ; in 

 Germany, chicorie ; in Holland, cichorei ; in Sweden, 

 cikorie ; in Russia, tsikorei ; in Denmark, cicorie. These 

 names are curious not only for their similarity but also for 

 their dissimilarity all are so very much alike in general 

 character, and yet no two of them are the same. It has 

 been suggested that the root of all these names will be 

 found in the Arabic word for the plant, cJiikouryeh j and 

 this may very possibly be the case, as at one time the Arabian 

 physicians and writers were men of great repute, and 

 through the conquest of European Turkey and the occupa- 

 tion of Granada, their works exercised a far more than 

 merely local influence. The specific name, Intylus, is a 

 modification of another Eastern name for the plant, 

 hendibeh ; and the endive of the garden, the C. endivia of 

 science, an allied but foreign species, derives both its 

 common and specific names from the same word. The 

 endive is a plant of Southern Asia. The endive and the 

 succory are the only two species in the genus Cichorium. 



The succory is a perennial. The stems attain to a height 

 of some three feet or so. The lateral branches are numerous 

 and spreading; they are given off at a very considerable 

 angle from the central stem, so that the general effect of 

 the plant, though spreading, is not rich and full, since the 



