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This week’s Wildflower Wednesday feature flower is Chicory.
Chicory is a nonnative flower often found in roadside ditches.
Chicory root can be roasted and ground as a caffeine-free coffee substitute.
Its leaves and flowers are edible and are often used in salads.
The whole plant opens new flower heads each day from midsummer into fall but each individual flower only blooms for one day.
It is believed that ingesting Chicory flower essence will enhance one’s ability to give self-less love and encourage warm, kind concern for the needs of others.
It was once believed that Chicory was able to make people invisible.
In pre-Celtic times chicory was a sacred plant regarded as the plant embodiment of the vegetation goddess, the daughter of Mother Earth.
