Erect branching herbs, with alternate and basal leaves, those of the stem and branches usually very small and bract-like, and large heads of blue purple pink or white flowers, peduncled, or in sessile clusters along the branches. Involucre of 2 series of herbaceous bracts, the outer somewhat spreading, the inner erect and subtending, or partly enclosing, the outer achenes. Receptacle flat, naked, or slightly fimbrillate. Rays truncate and 5-toothed at the apex. Anthers sagittate at the base. Style-branches slender, obtusish. Achenes 5-angled or 5-ribbed, truncate, not beaked. Pappus of 2 or 3 series of short blunt scales. [From the Arabic name.]

About 8 species, natives of the Old World, the following typical.

1. Cichorium Intybus L. Chicory. Wild Succory. Blue Sailors. Bunk

Fig. 4042

Cichorium Intybus L. Sp. Pl. 813. 1753.

Cichorium Intybus divaricatum DC. Prodr. 7: 84. 1838.

Perennial from a long deep tap-root; stems slightly hispid, stiff, much branched, 1°-3° high. Basal leaves spreading, runcinate-pinnatifid, dentate or lobed, spatulate, 3'-6' long, narrowed into long petioles; upper leaves much smaller, lanceolate or oblong, lobed or entire, clasping and auricled at the base; heads numerous, 1'-1 1/2' broad, 1-4 together in sessile clusters on the nearly naked or bracted branches, or sometimes peduncled; inner bracts of the involucre about 8; flowers blue, or sometimes white.

Roadsides, fields and waste places, Nova Scotia to Minnesota, Washington, North Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and California. Bermuda. The ground-up root is used as a substitute or adulterant for coffee. Heads usually closed by noon. The flowers sometimes bear supplementary rays. Blue daisy or dandelion. Coffee-weed. Bachelor's-buttons. Consists of several races. July-Oct.