Every year, on my birthday – August 5, heading to the garden sea of plenty at 5am, I pass by chicory, a plant whose blue flowers are the color of my mother’s eyes.
Despite the fact that my mother grew a variety of garden flowers for herself and the whole family: roses, clematis, dianthus, gladioli, phlox and others, she loved wildflowers, among which cichorium intibus was particularly popular.
At first glance, this is a very inconspicuous perennial herb with a branched, ribbed, slightly leafy stem with a height of 30-120 cm (1-3.9 feet) and ordinary basal leaves. From June to September, during the period of bright cold flowering, it is miraculously transformed, bringing rare blue tones to the flower beds and colorful lawns.
Interestingly, the low-leaved hard stems of chicory resembled the birch that was often used in the old days. For the bright blue inflorescences visible from afar, it is also called a roadside cornflower. From the Latin Cichorium translates as field leader, as it is a common wild flower.
Cichorium intybus is not only a wild plant, but also an ornamental, cultivated species. In nature, it is found in dry meadows, edges, wastelands, fields, roads and ditches in the European part.. Chicory is undemanding to the growing conditions. When planting, the distance between the plants is maintained 30-40 cm (1-1.3 inches).
Chicory is used as a food, medicinal and honey crop. In therapeutic and preventive food, root vegetables are used (syrup, coffee substitute, salads, vinaigrettes are cooked). Young green and more delicate bleached leaves in the form of lettuce are especially valuable for diabetics.
For medicinal purposes, roots are used, less often grass. Chicory is used for various heart diseases, anemia (especially in the elderly), to reduce blood sugar (diabetes), stimulate appetite, improve digestion and metabolism, gastritis with reduced secretion of hydrochloric acid, cholecystitis, cholelithiasis, kidney diseases, as a sedative, mild laxative, skin diseases. For example, for lotions for eczema and pustular skin lesions, 20 g (0.7 oz) of the herb should be infused in 500 ml of boiling water.