Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: July to October.

Seed-time: August to November.

Range: Nova Scotia to Manitoba, southward to North Carolina, Missouri, and Nebraska. Habitat: Fields, meadows, pastures, roadsides, city vacant lots.

In this country Chicory is "just a weed," and a very persistent one, but in Europe it is cultivated for profit. The root-leaves are used as forage for cattle and sheep, and are blanched and used as a pot herb and as salad; several thousand tons of its thick, fleshy roots are dried and annually exported to the United States for use as a substitute for coffee or as an adulterant, many persons liking the flavor and considering the admixture to be not only more economical than pure coffee but also a more wholesome beverage. Stems two to four feet tall, round, hollow, sparsely hairy, much branched, changing with age from green to purplish red and becoming very hard and woody. Like the two preceding and all the following related species, its juices are milky and somewhat bitter. Root-leaves tufted, spreading on the ground, four to eight inches long, spatulate in outline but pinnatifid, narrowing into margined petioles, the surface rough, the midrib set with stiff hairs on the under side; stem-leaves small, usually entire, clasping and auricled at base. Heads one to four together in sessile clusters on the nearly naked branches; but one in each cluster is open at one time, only in bright sunshine and is usually closed again by noon; heads an inch or more broad, deep sky-blue, the rays five-toothed at the tips; bracts of the involucre green, the inner row erect, the outer one short and spreading. Achenes brown, five-ribbed, crowned with a row of pointed scales; they are a frequent impurity of grass and clover seed. (Fig. 362.)

Fig. 361. - Lamb Succory (Arnoseris minima).

X 1/3.

Means Of Control

Deep cutting, below the crown, with spud or hoe will usually kill Chicory. Or it may be grubbed out, or hand-pulled when the ground is sufficiently soft to yield its hold on the long, fleshy taproot.

Fig. 362. - Chicory (Cichorium Intybus). X 1/3.