THE SUCCORY. 51 



branches stretch out to some distance in each direction, and 

 are but sparsely clothed with leaves of any considerable size. 

 The steins, however, bear leaves and flower-heads in great 

 profusion ; the spaces of clear stems are very small. The 

 general aspect of the plant is somewhat stiff and angular. 

 The lower leaves of the plant are large and spreading, 

 thickly covered with hairs, and something like the form of 

 the dandelion leaf, except that the numerous lateral seg- 

 ments, or lobes, are, in general direction, about at a right 

 angle with the central stem instead of pointing downwards, 

 as is often the case in the similar portions of the leaf of the 

 dandelion. The terminal piece is large in proportion to 

 the others, and all the segments, terminal and lateral, are 

 coarsely serrated. The upper leaves are very much smaller, 

 much less divided, and are what is termed botanically am- 

 plexicaul, a term used when the base of the leaf clasps the 

 stem and partially surrounds it. The flower-heads are very 

 numerous, nestling in the axils of the leaves, and ordinarily 

 in a little cluster of two or three. The flowers are rather 

 large, very fully expanded, and of a delicate tint of blue. 

 The involucres from which they spring have two rings 

 of bracts an inner one composed of eight parts, and a 

 smaller, outer, and more spreading ring of five parts. The 

 involucre is the part that in a composite flower corresponds 

 to the calyx in flowers of simpler construction. It is 

 composed of a ring of leaf -like forms termed bracts, that, as 

 in the sepals of the ordinary calyx, protect the inner and 

 more delicate parts from injury. 



The succory is not uncommonly met with in many 

 parts of England and Ireland, though it is by no means a 

 common plant in Scotland. It is more especially common 

 on the gravel or chalk, and in places where the soil is of a 



