CHICORY

CHICORY ALONG THE ROADSIDE...

...CHICORY FLOWER

Tuesday, 7:00 AM.  57 degrees F at the ferry dock, 53 on the back porch.  Wind SW, light with some gusts.  The sky has some scattered clouds, the humidity is 80% and the barometer is rising, now at 30.07".  We should be in for some nice weather.
   Chicory, Chicorium intybus, in the  Compositae family, is one of my favorite roadside weeds, as it is one of only a very few truly blue wildflowers of summer.  It thrives along sterile roadsides where little else will grow. Unfortunately it usually ends up being mowed as soon as it flowers, as It flowers just about the time all the roadsides get mowed, and also,  I don’t see as much of it north as further south.  It is of European and Middle-eastern  origin, where it is (or at least was) much used as a winter salad, the roots dug up, potted and grown indoors and deprived of light, producing tender, blanched leaves.  The roasted and ground roots have long been added to coffee, both in Europe and in  the US South, and commercial mixtures of coffee and chicory are, I believe, still available. I have tried it over the years with mixed reviews and will try it again if I can find it in the store.  Its usual habitat, on the absolute edge of the road, makes it difficult to dig and not very appetizing.   It imparts a slightly bitter flavor to coffee but makes it less acid.  Chicory also was used in the treatment of tuberculosis in the past, before antibiotics.  Its English name is "blue sailors," and the name Chicory is derived from the Arabic name for the plant.