Cichorium intybus Chicory

LATIN NAME: CICHORIUM INTYBUS

COMMON NAME: Chicory

The chicory sapphires the upright, branching perennial with the toothed, lance-shaped leaves and the clusters of the bright-blue, daisy-like flowers that open along the stems through the summer, each flower with the square-tipped petals and the blue centre, the flowers sapphiring above the roadside and the meadow, the small, ribbed achenes following. The plant grows quickly into the bold clump, and it stands the heat and the poor soil well. It likes the sun, and the well-drained soil.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The blue flowers of the chicory give it a long place in the research on the deep-rooted herbs of the daisy family, and the intybus species appears in the studies of the taproot build and the root and leaf chemistry. The work looks at the roasted-root drinks, the salad leaves, and the seed biology. The food scientists value the roots, and the growers of the hardy meadow and salad herbs keep the species in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the meadow and the kitchen garden, the chicory sapphires the summer meadow with the blue flowers. The leaves serve the salads for the ages, the roasted root serves the coffee-like drinks, and the blue flowers open for the bees. It grows well in the well-drained, sunny ground. Blue-flowered, deep-rooted and hardy.

To grow the Chicory from seed, sow the seeds into the fine, shallow drills of the open bed, then cover them very lightly, keep the drills cool and moist, and the seedlings shoot up within a week or two.

Keep the drills cool and moist, and thin the seedlings to the roomy spacing. The sapphire blooms come within the season. Let the young plants grow on in the sunny, open ground, and the sapphire blooms will open through the summer.

Chicory [ Cichorium Intybus ] is very easy to grow, in fact once established it will grow without any care at all. The plant will only make leaf growth the first year, and then will flower the second year and successive season. Chicory flowers have blue blossoms consisting of ray flowers that are formed at end of stems and stem leaf axils, and the flowers are the most obvious in the morning and close later in the day. The flowers have numerous parts and are wide up to 1.5 inches. Blooms first appear in late spring and continue into mid fall.

Chicory [ Cichorium Intybus ] is cultivated since ancient times for its leaves, is used for salads. It is usually blanched by covering with litter to make it less bitter; whole or shredded leaves are served with oil and vinegar as salads; blanched hearts serve as a vegetable. Root-chicory, established in Europe during, the Napoleanic blockade, is cultivated for roots used as a coffee substitute. When blended with ground coffee, they enhance the flavor and aroma of the brew.

Chicory is widely knows as an edible plant for medicines and cooking.

A food and medicine plant, going back to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who used the roots and the young shoots in spring like dandelion. Has diuretic, tonic and laxative properties, and is said to protect the liver from effects of excessive coffee drinking. Leaves yield a dye of clear blue colour, much like the colour of its lovely daisy flowers.