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Chicory — the bluest flower of summer

Karen Wils photo Chicory flowers bloom in Delta County.

ESCANABA — Mid-summer days dance with blue!

Blue skies bring smiles. Blue waves on the lake make refreshing memories.

The piercing blue flowers along the country roadsides add beauty to our travels. The chicory plant is a symbol of perseverance and frugality.

It may well be a strong and practical plant, but those bright blue flowers standing on the edge of green fields or just off the gravel are what make this plant special.

Not every Yooper knows the chicory plant by name, but most of us have admired its beauty in mid-to-late summer. You have to be a morning person to see the chicory flowers in full bloom. Chicory stalks grow two to three feet tall in sunny open areas. The toothed ray of clear blue flowers open early in the morning and close by early afternoon.

This plant thrives in limestone soils, so it loves Delta County.

It’s a sign that summer’s half done. It blooms when the sweet corn is nearly ripe.

Chicory is not a native Michigan plant. It was brought over as seeds with the colonists. They had many medicinal uses for this herb, like reducing fevers, treating jaundice and as an anti-inflammatory.

Thomas Jefferson and other plantation owners back in his day grew chicory as a forage crop for horses and cattle.

As the great virgin forests fell to the lumbermen’s axes and the pioneers settled in the north country, so did the chicory plants.

The plant is a native of Eurasia and is in the dandelion family. Like the dandelion, the jagged leaves of this plant makes excellent greens for eating. Also like the dandelion, the chicory has a big, long tap root below it. With the tap root it is hard to transplant, but several kinds of cultivated varieties of chicory are now available.

Back during the Great Depression and during the Second World War, when coffee was hard to get, chicory root was one of the best substitutes.

Today, many coffee companies put ground chicory root in their blends as a matter of course. It is supposed to make coffee more mellow and with a slight chocolatey flavor from the chicory.

With many folks changing to a more organic diet and health care, I think chicory with its bright blue flowers is around to stay.

There’s something carefree and happy about the color of the chicory flower. It’s like a bright beautiful morning at the old family farm.

I hope your weekend is as cheery as the wild chicory!

——

Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.

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