Flowers. Photo: Don Wood, south coast, NSW

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, ACT

Rosette. Photo: Zoya Akulova, California, USA

A lower stem leaf. Photo: Steven J Baskauf, Tennessee, USA

Common Name

Chicory, Succory

Family

Asteraceae

Notes

Introduced perennial forb to 1.2m tall. Basal rosette leaves with sheathing bases, 7-30cm long, 10-120mm wide, flat, hairy to more or less hairless, margins toothed to dissected and with toothed lobes, tips pointed.  Stem leaves similar, alternating up the stems, stem-clasping, gradually becoming smaller and with entire margins, reducing to scale-like leaves.  Flower heads blue, rarely white, with many ‘petals’, in groups of 1-3 at the bases of the leaves or at the ends of the stems.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 714

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cichorium~intybus