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Cichorium intybus
Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant of the daisy family Asteraceae, usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Many varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched buds), or roots (var. sativum), which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and food additive. In the 21st century, inulin, an extract from chicory root, has been used in food manufacturing as a sweetener and source of dietary fiber. When flowering, chicory has a tough, grooved, and more or less hairy stem. It can grow to 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) tall. The leaves are stalked, lanceolate and unlobed; they range from 10–32 cm (4–12+1⁄2 in) in length and 2–8 cm (3⁄4–3+1⁄4 in) wide. The flower heads are 3–4 cm (1+1⁄4–1+1⁄2 in) wide, and usually light purple or lavender; it has also been described as light blue, and rarely white or pink. Of the two rows of involucral bracts, the inner is longer and erect, the outer is shorter and spreading. It flowers from July until October.
Hadley Valley Preserve is former farmland that has been restored to mostly native prairie with some clumps of shrubs and forest. There is a nice size creek bisecting it. The 807-acre Hadley Valley was acquired between 2000 and 2014. The preserve is part of the Spring Creek preservation system, which conserves more than 2,000 acres. Hadley Valley protects a diversity of habitats, including forest, savanna, wetland and a portion of Spring Creek. Wildlife found at the preserve includes more than 15,000 species of insects, birds, aquatic invertebrates, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. The preserve is also home to a variety of plant species, including tall swamp marigold, wahoo, great angelica, yellow avens and shingle oak. The site is managed with invasive species control, prescribed burning, native species establishment and soil stabilization to protect and enhance its natural resources. The preserve is the location of the largest restoration effort in the District’s history — a stream de-channelization, wetland restoration and wildlife habitat restoration project in 500 acres of the preserve — performed in partnership with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, Openlands, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the O’Hare Modernization Program.
The root of this plant is popular in coffee in the southern U.S.
Spotted on Aug 7, 2021
Submitted on Aug 21, 2021
4 Comments
Thanks Rithmini. Interesting, maybe, but the decrease in photo quality due to distance cannot be disputed (for many, but not all, of the shots).
Well in my case, I find all of your local spottings as interesting as Sri Lankan ones :)
Hi i_munasinghe: good to see you on PN again. glad to know you are OK and just busy in these crazy times. Thanks for the kind words--it was great to be honored with a SOTW. Yes, I have been trying to get out more locally since I have already posted all my Sri Lanka photos, and I don't travel on business any more. It is much more work to get spottings now vs. Sri Lanka where you sit in a jeep and they drive you around and the wildlife is literally all around you and very close up for good photos. Now I have to drive usally about an hour from my actual home, and then hike several miles. and the wildlife is much more in hiding and hard to spot, and when I do see it, it is oftern much farther away, making the photography much more challenging and poorer quality. But I do the best I can:)
Nice to see spottings from your home town sir. I apologize I couldn't get back to you for a long timeregarding the identifications you wished to get clarified. I have been quite busy. But I am pleased to see the network you have built up in the Noah community sir.