I _c>o 



&l)t STrca^urg at SSnfang. 



[cicu 



flowers. The stamens are united, and their 

 anthers are as other syngenesious or com- 

 posite plants. The fruit is an achene 

 adherent to the ealycine-tube, and fur- 

 nished with pappus or a hairy calycine 

 limb at the top. The plants abound in a 

 milky juice, and they have bitter and 

 sometimes narcotic qualities. Some of 

 them, as the dandelion, act on the kidneys 

 I and the liver. Some of them are esculent 

 vegetables and salads. They abound in 

 cold regions. Their heads of flowers have 

 , usually the property of opening under the 

 influence of light and closing in darkness. 

 Chicory or wild succory (Cichorium Inty- 

 . bus) is much cultivated in France and Ger- 

 , many, its roots being used as an addition to 

 i coffee. The admixture, without the due 

 ! indication of it, is forbidden in Britain. 

 Cichorium Endivia supplies the salad called 

 endive. Lactuca virosa furnished lactuca- 

 ! rium, a drug employed in place of opium 

 i to procure sleep. Common lettuce is the 

 . produce of Lactuca sativa, skirret is the 

 ! root of Scorzonera hispanica, while salsafy 

 I is obtained from Tragopogon porrifolius. 

 [ The root of dandelion (Leontodon Taraxa- 

 cum) is sometimes used as coffee. See 



; ASTERACE.E. [J. H. B.] 



| CICHORIUM. A genus of composites 

 i which includes the chicory and the endive, 

 and belongs to the division characterised 

 by the presence of ligulateor strap-shaped 

 florets only in the heads of flowers, and by 

 the presence of a milky juice. It consists 

 of perennial plants, with stiff branching 

 stems, and sessile heads of blue flowers, 

 surrounded by an involucre consisting of 

 two rows of bracts, the outer of which are 

 feflexed and shorter than the inner. The 

 fruits are crowned by two rows of minute 

 scales, constituting the limb of the calyx. 

 The Wild Chicory or Succory, C. Intybus, 

 is a perennial plant found in this country 

 by roadsides and in dry, especially chalky, 

 soil. It has a long tap root, and a rigid 

 slightly hairy branched stem, with a few 

 sessile clasping leaves. The lower leaves 

 spread on the ground, and are pinnately 

 lobed and coarsely toothed, while the 

 upper ones are scanty and embrace the 

 stem by the two pointed lobes at their base. 

 The heads of flowers are few, sessile, of 

 the size of a penny-piece, and of a brilliant 

 light blue colour. The leaves of chicory 

 are blanched and used as a salad under the 

 name of Barbe du Capucine. The root 

 roasted was largely used to mix with and 

 adulterate coffee, but within the last few 

 years grocers mixing chicory with coffee 

 are bound to affix a label on the outside of 

 the package announcing the admixture, so 

 that purchasers can now have pure coffee, 

 or coffee mixed with chicory, as they pre- 

 fer—for there are some who like the 

 mixture. It need hardly be said that 

 chicory is entirely destitute of those pro- 

 perties which render coffee an agreeable 

 and nutritive beverage, while on the other 

 hand it possesses medicinal properties 

 closely like those of dandelion, and 

 which therefore render it unv, holesome for 



constant use. Moreover, the chicory used 

 to mix with coffee is very often largely 

 adulterated with carrot, mangold-wurzel, 

 oak-bark, tan, mahogany saw-dust, baked 

 horse liver, Venetian red, &c, &c. The 

 detection of these several materials is 

 easily accomplished by the aid of the 

 microscope and the test tube as shown in 

 Dr. Hassall's work on the adulteration of 

 food. Chicory is readily cultivated in this 

 country. That grown at Canterbury was 

 acknowledged to be finer than that im- 

 ported from abroad, and would have been 

 a very profitable crop, but that the buyers 

 arbitrarily fixed a lower price upon the 

 English than upon the imported. The her- 

 bage forms good food for cattle. [M. T. M.] 

 The Endive, C. Endivia, is a hardy annual 

 indigenous to the northern provinces of 

 China, and other parts of Asia, and, accord- 

 ing to the Hortus Kewensis, was cultivated 

 in this country in 1548. Macintosh in his 

 Book of the Garden, believes it is also a 

 native of Egypt, and that it was carried 

 from thence to Italy, and afterwards into 

 Britain. Be this as it may, there is no 

 doubt of its having been used as an escu- 

 lent from a very early period by the Egyp- 

 tians, who probably communicated it to the 

 ancient Greeks and Romans, along with 

 their manner of using it. Endive, radishes, 

 and succory are mentioned by Ovid as 

 forming part of a garden salad ; and Pliny 

 states that endive in his time was eaten 

 both as a salad and potherb. As such it 

 has been used in this country for three 

 centuries, and it is a singular fact that the 

 manner in which it was prepared for 

 winter use, as described by Gerarde in 

 1597, differs but little from the mode that 

 is often practised at the present day. The 

 plant has numerous large sinuate smooth 

 toothed, or in some varieties much 

 undulated and finely-curled deep-green 

 leaves. The flower-stem rises about two 

 feet high and produces numerous pale-blue 

 flowers. It is cultivated solely for the 

 stocky head of leaves, which after being 

 blanched to diminish their bitterness, are 

 used in salads and stews during winter 

 and spring. The different varieties of 

 endive are arranged in two classes, namely: 

 1, the Batavian (Scarolesof the French), 

 which comprises all with large broad 

 leaves, slightly ragged or torn ; and 2, the 

 Curled or Chicorees of the French, being 

 all those with crisp and finely-frizzled j 

 leaves. [W. B. BJ 



CICONIUM. A section of the genus 

 Pelargonium,- comprising the species with 

 the petals all the same colour, the two 

 upper ones shorter and narrower than the 

 rest : stamens short and erect, the two 

 lowest shorter, with the anthers nearly 

 sessile. The stems are somewhat shrubby 

 and fleshy. [J. T. S.] 



CICUTA. A deadly genus of Umbelliferbe 



or Apiacem, known by their dissected leaves, 

 by their compound umbels without any 

 general involucre, but with partial in- 

 volucres consisting of several awl-shaped 

 bracts, and by the teeth of the calyx pro- 



