The subject of roadside weeds the other day brought up some similarities between Wild Lettuce-Lactuca spp and Chicory-Cichorium intybus. Wild Lettuce is a native while Chicory is alien. Both are prolific, can be added to salads (among other things), have similar looking flowers, and are members of the Aster family.
Chicory
Wild Lettuce
Also, as mentioned in the Wild Lettuce post, they both are only open in bright daylight. Yesterday was a nice bright overcast sky for a while before it rained so much easier to get an even balance to the lighting than in full sun.
Stephen Gingold Nature Photography Blog 
I may have mentioned to you that as we drove around the Northeast in the second half of July and the first week of August, the two most common wildflowers we saw along the roads were chicory and Queen Anne’s lace, both alien invasives. In addition to putting chicory leaves in salads, people have used roasted chicory roots as a coffee substitute and coffee additive.
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You did. I saw a lot of that combination while making these images.
As a kid, my mother decided to try different greens in our salads. Chicory was one…kind of scratchy. Didn’t care much for kale and still don’t.
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I sometimes order a New Orleans- style coffee/chicory blend, and it’s delicious. I’ve always liked this shade of blue, whatever it might be called, nice shot.
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Thank you. Not a coffee drinker so that flavor eludes me but I am glad the image made you think of it. It is one of my favorite blue flowers.
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I’ve always loved the blue of Chicory, and like Steve S. it often seems one of the most common wildflowers along the roads. I will have to keep my eyes open for Wild Lettuce.
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Many of our dirt roads, along with some paved, are lined with them as summer develops. We are nearing the end of their season and I almost missed it. They are a lovely blue.
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Beautiful, especially the detail and color of the first.
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Thanks, Lemony. I worked hard to capture the detail so thank you for noticing.
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Your photos make them look like the stars they are. 🙂
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Thanks, Ann. That’s my goal on each encounter. It’s a happy day when I am successful.
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The first time I remember seeing chicory was in Kansas. It looked much like our skeleton plant, except that it was blue rather than lavender. I like both of them, for their structures as much as for their colors. Another plant whose bloom resembles them (at least to my eye) is Carolina elephant’s foot (Elephantopus carolinianus), which I’ve only recently met. It’s interesting that while chicory has only ray flowers, the elephant’s foot has only disk flowers.
I like the little teeth on the ends of the ray flowers. They’re cute.
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I hope to see your elephant’s foot flower. The preview on my LCD on the back of the camera in LiveView 10x really helped settle on there the focus should be to get those petal details the way I wanted. When you are that close and using a macro lens it’s a challenge.
A lot of folks are saying they enjoy this shade of blue. I am among those.
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Love the way you’ve captured the detail – and that gorgeous blue!
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I was worried about the color capture as it was a gray day with a few rain drops here and there. But that allowed the blue to shine in a way that bright light would have deterred. And the detail was the challenge at such close range. Thanks, Ann.
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Really a wonderful blue, very similar to that of cornflowers.
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As a kid we grew Bachelor’s Buttons and blue was my favorite. Years later I found them growing in a median strip along the NY State Thruway. They are more two-tones than the Chicory but you are right…the blues are similar. Thanks, Gary.
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Both beautiful, in detail and in color, as all the others have said. Makes one wonder, what makes a weed a weed?
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Thanks, Michael.
I guess different folks have different tolerances for uninvited guests. There are only a few encroaching plants that we dislike…Poison Ivy being at the top of the list. I don’t think having “weed” as part of the name is a very true definition.
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Anything blue is wonderful and these flowers are simply gorgeous. I first saw chicory on an Audubon field trip about 45 years ago. In Louisiana chicory is added to coffee and it is utterly delicious. In fact, I think chicory coffee is sold in stores.
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Robert mentioned that combination as a Cajun flavor. If only I liked coffees I’d give it a try. 🙂
Green is my favorite color, but this blue gives it a challenge.
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…and chicory root can be dried, ground and used as a coffee substitute…
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The only chicory I’ve had was a salad green. So many plants offer us much healthier substitutes for what is popular in the grocer’s aisles.
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What you had in your salad, was likely an endive, Steve, though I apologize if I make an assumption. I found this Wikipedia article interesting, hope it’s accurate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory
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Here is the chicory we had in our salad.I see also the endive appears to be the more budded form and chicory maybe is what it becomes when it leafs out. I am strictly a spring mix or romaine salad fan.
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Who knew how complex the world of healthy greens would become? Can you blame anyone for ordering iceberg salad out of sheer desperation?! 🙂 🥗
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We broke down and tried some again during the romaine recall. It did not become a renewed habit. 🙂
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A fellow whose blog I follow coincidentally posted about chicory this week. Several facts in the post fascinated me; I had no idea that endive and radicchio are related. Funny that you mentioned spring mix and romaine. Those are my preferences, too.
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Thanks for the link, Linda. I just followed him. His description of his introvert’s awkwardness rang familiar as it is only in recent years that I have become more interested in being with other people…but only just slightly. Last autumn’s experience made me appreciate people after meeting so many caring folks. 🙂
I was also unaware of the connection between chicory, endive and radicchio. WE generally don’t have any of those in our salads unless we get something fancy while dining out which is rare and infrequent. One of the pleasures of going to Maine is the occasional dinner or lunch in a restaurant. We rent a cottage and prepare most of our meals although I do try to support the local economy if I can.
It was all spring mix during the romaine recall.
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i never thought about the similarity – thanks for showing these tow striking photos together, Steve. 🙂
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And the Chicory with Queen Anne’s Lace? That says driving to work to me, along the highway, in the summer. That sight got me though many a New York morning.
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Glad to bring some fond memories to mind, Lynn. 🙂
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Yes and sometimes there is the accent of goat weed, if I’m remembering the right name/plant, with its splash of warm yellow to contrast with the blue and white of chicory and queen Anne’s lace. As others have mentioned, I really love the blue of chicory and your images of it really do it justice. I like wild lettuce, too. I’m not one to forage, though. I’ve nibbled the odd dandelion but that’s as far as it goes in my salad bowl.
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I know several people who do like to forage and I suppose it really doesn’t do that much harm as the plants seem to keep coming back annually. But I like to co-exist.
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I have read some native American writers who will tell you that some plants will in fact die out if they are NOT harvested (with care, of course.) I found that a startling insight, and very likely true. The land managers here will say what a puzzle it is when certain plants will shrink in numbers or wink out altogether even when the area is being carefully managed to protect them. It may be that we should be using them, too!
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