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In his book, "Qircle of the Seasons," American nature writer Edwin Way Teale wrote of chicory, "... most beautiful of blues ... the most perfect blue on earth, the most perfect blue under the sky." As is usual with Teale, he got it just right.
The blue flowers of chicory line and define country roads of the Virginia Piedmont like the lights I see along airport runways when landing at night. Not just country roads, either. I see them along Interstate 66 and other major highways in the Virginia Piedmont.
Like most roadside and field flowers, chicory was introduced from Europe, brought here by early settlers.
If I had the power to summon an Indian medicine man from the past — say, 300 years ago — into the present, he would be puzzled by all the plants new to him. They wouldn't have been around when he was curing his tribe-mates of various ailments. Chicory, along with other introduced plants such as Queen Anne's lace, mullein, daisies, and pink clover, would be new to him.
The rich blue of chicory is best seen early on a misty morning before the sun reaches them. On a morning of gentle rain, the effect can be astonishing. Strong sunlight at midday bleaches the color out of chicory and causes the flowers to fade and fold in on themselves. Each blue "flower" lasts only a day.
To write of the chicory "flower" is inaccurate. For each bloom is actually a cluster, or composite, of many small flowers surrounded by the ragged blue rays which we mistakenly call petals.
The chicory that means coffee for many comes from this plant. The long taproot is collected after the plant sets seed; it is then dried
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