Wild chicory

Description:

When flowering, wild chicory has a tough, grooved, and more or less hairy stem, from 30 to 100 centimetres tall. The leaves are stalked, lanceolate and unlobed. The flower heads are 2 to 4 centimetres wide, and usually bright blue, rarely white or pink. There are two rows of involucral bracts, the inner are longer and erect, the outer are shorter and spreading. It flowers from July until October. The achenes have no pappus, but do have toothed scales on top.

Habitat:

Wild chicory usually appears spontaneously if you don't mow the lawn. It also grows on roadsides, in waste places, river banks and in overgrown fields.

Notes:

Spotted along the Ijssel river in rural area of Deventer, Holland.