334 SUCCORY. 



consists of about eight elongated, erect, parallel, linear, ciliated 

 scales, surrounded at the base with five smaller and shorter 

 ones. The corolla is of a brilliant light blue colour, composed 

 of numerous ligulate florets, truncate, and five-toothed at the 

 summit, containing five stamens, having the anthers united into 

 a cylinder. The germen is conical, hairy, supporting a filiform 

 style, tipped with a bifid revolute stigma of a light blue colour. 

 The receptacle is dotted, scattered with a few obsolete chaffy 

 hairs. The fruit is obovate, angular, smooth, straw-coloured, 

 crowned with a short scaly sessile pappus, and containing a sin- 

 gle seed. Plate 43, fig. 3, (a) hermaphrodite floret, natural 

 size ; (b) fruit, natural size ; (c) the same magnified. 



This plant is very common on the borders of fields and road- 

 sides, and in waste or uncultivated places, chiefly in a light 

 gravelly or chalky soil, flowering in July and August. 



The generic name is derived from the Greek kix°°^> an( l tnat 

 from the Arabic chikouryeh. The specific name Intybus is also 

 supposed to owe its origin to the Arabic hendibeh. Dioscorides 

 mentions three species, but gives no description ; Theophrastus 

 is more explicit. Celsus calls the wild Succory Ambubeia. 



The garden Endive was formerly considered a variety of this 

 species, altered by cultivation, but is now proved to be obtained 

 from C. Endivia, a native of India. The wild Succory, when 

 cultivated in rich soil, becomes much larger in all its parts ; it 

 gives rise to the varieties called in France chicoree frisee, barbe 

 de capucin, and some others, which are produced by blanching. 



General Uses. — Succory is applied to several useful purposes, both in 

 rural and domestic economy. It has long been cultivated on the continent 

 as food for cattle. It is much relished by sheep, is reputed to increase the 

 milk and flesh of cattle that feed upon it, and when thoroughly dried, 

 is made into hay and is very nutritious. It is easy of cultivation in most 

 kinds of soil, resisting dryness, cold and frost, and the heaviest rains ; 

 moreover it grows fast, and supplies excellent fodder for cattle in the early 

 spring. When cultivated in gardens and blanched, it becomes sweeter, 

 more succulent, and is eaten in salads, or boiled as an addition to various 

 dishes. The Egyptians cultivate this plant to a great extent, and make it 

 one of their chief articles of food, and the ancient Greeks and Romans were 

 not unacquainted with its culinary uses. Horace * adverts to its edible quali- 



* " Me pascunt olivae 



Me cichoria, levesque malvae." 



Car. lib. i. od. 31, 



