Chicory.Cichorium Intybus.Succory.Blue Sailors.
Found, from July to September, growing in dry waste places.
The stalk, which varies from 2 to 4 feet in height, is branching, and leafy, rather large, stout and tough of fibre, and rigid in growth; it is grooved and hairy. The color is gray-green.
The leaf is not large, oblong in shape, with a sharp tip; the margin is slightly notched, with spreading hairs along the edge; the midrib is strong and the surface is hairy; the gesture curving, or wavy. In color, gray-green. The lower leaves are sharply cut at the base. The arrangement is alternate, and the leaves clasp the stalk.
The flower is “strap-shaped,” rather broad, with a finely notched lip; the texture is very fine and thin, and the surface is shining and smooth. The color is an exquisite gray-blue or lavender, sometimes inclining to lilac, or even to pink. The flowers are arranged in heads, composed of several rows, spreading from a leafy green cup, which is closely surrounded by 4 or 6 little leaves (or “bracts”): all these parts being hairy. The heads are set close to the stalk in groups of twos and threes, in the angles of leaves, or singly on short stout stems.
These charmingly colored blossoms are scattered all along the stalks and branches, beginning near the foot, where they first open, not more than a few being in perfection at once. This scantiness of bloom and the stiff weediness of its growth make the Chicory plant less loved than it deserves for the peculiar beauty of its blue flowers. It grows most profusely near the seaboard, and in vacant city lots or neglected door-yards it bravely tries to hide the ugly remnants of civilization thrown aside by man.