PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 97 



and cultivated,^ but their notices of it are too brief to be 

 clear. According to Heldreich, the modern Greeks apply 

 the general name of lachaiia, a vegetable or salad, to 

 seventeen different chicories, of which he gives a list.^ 

 He says that the species commonly cultivated is Cicho- 

 rium divaricatitm, Schousboe ((7. pumilum, Jacquin); 

 but it is an annual, and the chicory of which Theophrastus 

 speaks was perennial. 



Endive Cichorium Endivia, Linnreus. 



The white chicories or endives of our gardens are 

 distinguished from Cichoriu7)% Intybus, in that they are 

 annuals, and less bitter to the taste. Moreover, the hairs 

 of the pappus which crowns the seed are four times longer, 

 and unequal instead of being equal. As long as this 

 plant was compared with C. Intyhus, it was difficult 

 not to admit two species. The origin of C. Endivia 

 is uncertain. When we received, forty years ago, speci- 

 mens of an Indian CicJioi^iurti, which Hamilton named 

 C. cosmia, they seemed to us so like the endive that we 

 supposed the latter to have an Indian origin, as has been 

 sometimes suggested;^ but Anglo-Indian botanists said, 

 and continue to assert, that in India the plant only grows 

 under cultivation.* The uncertainty persisted as to the 

 geographical origin. After this, several botanists^ con- 

 ceived the idea of comparing the endive with an annual 

 species, wild in the region of the Mediterranean, Gicho- 

 riurri pumilum, Jacquin (G. divaricatum, Schousboe), 

 and the differences were found to be so slight that some 

 have suspected, and others have affirmed, their specific 

 identity. For my part, after having seen wild specimens 

 from Sicily, and compared the good illustrations published 

 by Reichenbach (Icones, vol. xix., pis. 1357, 1358), I 

 am disposed to take the cultivated endives for varieties 



' Dioscoridep, ii. c. 160; Pliny, xix. c. 8; Palladin?, xi. c. 11. See 

 other authors quoted by Lenz, Bot. d. AUen, p. 483. 



^ Heldreich, Die Nutspflanzen Griechenlands, pp. 28, 76. 



' Auor. Pyr. de Candolle, Prodr., vii. p. 84; Alph. de Candolle, Gdcgr. 

 B 't., p. 845. 



* Clarke, Compos. iTid., p. 250. 



* De Yiv'mni, Flora Dalmat.,n. -p. 97; Schultz in Webb, P/ii/t Canar., 

 sect. ii. p. 391; Boissier, Fl. Orient., iii. p. 716. 



