COMPOSITE. 



501 



XXXYIII. CHICORV. CICHORIUM. 



Perennials, with the leaves mostly radical, stiff branching stems, 

 and sessile heads of blue flowers. Involucres oblong. Achenes 

 crowned by a ring of minute erect scales. 



Besides the British species, the genus only includes the garden 

 Endive, generally supposed to be a native of India, but it is very doubt- 

 ful if it be wild even there, and it may be a mere cultivated variety of 

 the common wild C. 



1. Wild Chicory. Cichorium Xntybus, Linn. (Fig. 601.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 539. Succory or Chicory.) 



Perennial stock descending into a 

 long tap-root. Stems more or less his- 

 pid, 1 to 2 or even 3 feet high. Eadical 

 leaves spreading on the ground, and, 

 as well as the lower stem-leaves, more 

 or less hairy and pinnatifid, with a 

 large terminal lobe and smaller lateral 

 ones, all pointed and coarsely toothed ; 

 the upper leaves small, less cut, em- 

 bracing the stem by pointed auricles. 

 Elower-heads in closely sessile clusters 

 of 2 or 3 along the stiff spreading 

 branches, and 1 or 2 terminal ones. In- 

 volucres of about 8 inner bracts and a 

 few outer ones about half their length ; 

 the florets large, of a bright blue. 

 Achenes smooth or scarcely ribbed, 

 closely packed in the hard dry base of 

 the involucre. 



In dry wastes, on roadsides, and bor- 

 ders of fields, over the greater part of Europe and Asia, stopping only 

 short of the Arctic regions on the one side, and the tropics on the 

 other. Not uncommon in some parts of England and Ireland, but 

 does not extend far into Scotland. Fl. summer and autumn. 



Fig. 601. 



XXXIX. ARNOSERIS. ARNOSEEIS. 



A single species, distinguished as a genus from Lapsane, as having a 

 different habit, and the achenes crowned with a minute raised border ; 



