It’s Chicory!

A few years ago I said to my husband, “Ugh, I really gotta dig out that chicory from the grass next to the road.” To which he responded, “What’s chicory?” Well, I couldn’t believe he’d never heard of chicory, “You know, that purple flowering plant that’s next to each mile of highway you’ve ever driven on. Every year, since forever!” But still he insisted, “I’ve never seen it.”

To me, not seeing chicory was akin to saying he’d never seen a dandelion, but I certainly believe that he didn’t see it. Because:

1. He wasn’t looking for it as he went about his daily business.
2. He didn’t know it existed or its name.

This is called “plant blindness”. It’s when a plant is right in front of us and we pass it all the time, but if somebody asked, we never knew it was there.

One way to combat plant blindness is to befriend a person with hyper-plant awareness. Just spend a day walking around with somebody like me and I bet you they’ll stop dead in their tracks to look at a plant. Just last weekend I stopped on the way into a restaurant to take a picture of a plant next to the door. It didn’t faze my family; they walked in the door and got us a table, knowing I’d be along shortly.

You should be able to check this plant off your scavenger hunt list easily next summer, from June through September. Chicory is a two to five foot tall plant. This weed is originally from Europe, but has made itself at home in North America in every one of the lower 48 states. You can usually find it growing in disturbed areas, such as the grass next to roads. It has bluish purple, daisy-like flowers and the root is used in a special blend of New Orleans coffee.

Once you find a plant and can give it a name like “chicory”, instead of “plant”, then you’ll start to notice that they are EVERYWHERE. Maybe, like my husband, you just didn’t know it was there.

Keep following my scavenger hunt posts as I introduce plants one-by-one. Then you can head outside and search for them. Let me know in the comments if you find Chicory and where you saw it.

P.S. The scientific name for chicory is Cichorium intybus. It’s also known as succory.