Chicory-Cichorium intybus  (Si-KOR-ee-um in-TIE-buss)

Family  Compositae

Hardy perennial

Other names known by:

• Succory
• blue sailors
• ragged sailors

Chicory is a hardy perennial native to Eurasia.  It has naturalized in most of North America, common along roadsides and waste places, especially limestone soils.  The genus chichorium contains 8 or 9 species.  Chicory grows like a dandelion, with a deep taproot and rosette of toothed basal leaves.  Stalks grow 2 to 5 feet tall and branch several times.  The leaves are held close to the center stalk.  The flower head is about 1 1/2" wide, forming singly or in pairs in the axils of the stem leaves in midsumer.  Flowers are a clear blue with straplike petals all around that are toothed on the outer edge.   Occasionally you will see the flowers in pink or white, but they are rare.  Chicory is open pollinated by bees, open early in the morning and close five hours later. 

In the language of flowers, chicory symbolized frugality.

Chicory came early to North America with the colonists as a medicinal herb.  It was grown by Thomas Jefferson amoung others as a forage crop, being fed green to horses, cattle, sheep, rabbits and poultry.

On the Continent the culinary uses of chicory date back to Roman times at least.  Dozens of improved cultivars were developed that scarcely resemble the roadside weed.  These include heading chicories like radicchio; loose-leaf chicory; root chicory, grown for cooking like parsnips or for roasting to make a coffee substitute; and witloof (or Belgian endive), the root being forced to make elongated shoots called chicons.

Chicory has been used for many ailments throughout history including:

• To aid in increasing a mothers' milk production when nursing.
• To aid in reducing  a mothers's milk production.
• A poultice to releave inflamed eyes.
• A poultice for any swelling.
• Root extracts where used as a diuretic and laxative, to treat fevers and jaundice.
• Used to treat liver ailments, gallstones.

Lab tests on root extracts have revealed properties of:

• anti-inflammatory
• anti-bacterial
• slightly sedating
• slow the pulse
• lower blood sugar

A tisane using the leaves was prescribed to "strengthen hot, weak and feeble stomachs".

Chicory contains a compound called maltol (3-hydroxyl-2-methyl-4-pyrone).  It is used in baked goods to intensify the flavor of sugar 30 to 300 fold.

Chicory, being a perennial, should be grown in a bed where it can stay.  You may also want to contain it in a raised bed to prevent spreading too much.  The seeds are extremely small.  One packet about 1 gram weight will plant a row 25 feet long.  The Cook's Garden offers two varieties; Sweet Trieste (40 days), a tangy, sweet, pale green, fast growing plant; and Italico Rosso (65 days), a rare red form with good taste, look like red dandelion leaves.  Both of these varieties are cut and come again, excellent choices for a long supply of salad greens.

Chicory may have started out in pour soil along the roads, but you will want to sow your seeds in the usual garden soil that has some organic material added to it.  Easy to grow, hard to kill, great to eat.  You can't ask much more from a plant.