| L | intubum (also intibum, -us; intybum, -us) Flora Eur. 1512 |
E | chicory, but see below | S | Cichorium intybus L. |
| G | Zichorie, but see below | F | chicorée, but see below | I | radicchio selvatico, but see below |
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One of the lovliest and most confusing of plants.
1. Vergil talks about two different types of intubum. The first at G. 1.120 is an invasive weed, that takes over the second your back is turned. The second, G. 4.120 is a garden plant, for which see intubum II (just to keep things clear).
This is the beautiful and wildly varied
roadside plant, most often called chicory in English. The leaves
are a tasty, bitter salad green, which resemble arugula (rocket,
Eruca sativa) but are not. The root is dried and used to flavor coffee
or as a coffee substitute. |
 |
2. But wait, there's more. This already amazingly variegated plant shows up in a number of cultivated varieties, of which the most suprizing is:
 cult.bianca.di.milano.jpg |
 cult.rosso.di.trevisio.jpg |
 cult.rosso.di.verona.jpg |
 radicchio4-150.jpg |
 treviso3_72.jpg |
 treviso5_300.jpg |
RADICCHIO
Yes, difficult to believe, but radicchio is just a garden variety of chicory.
3. And there's more! Look closely at the radicchio di treviso. Because if you're a Belgian c. 1850 and you grow chicory roots in the dark (like white asparagus) you get:
 218a.jpg |
 endive1.jpg |
 endive-4.jpg |
Chicory winds up having a bewildering variety of names:
| English | French | German | Italian |
| chicory, wild chicory, blue daisy, blue sailors, coffee chicory, coffee weed, common chicory, succory | barbe de capucin, chicorée, chicorée à café, chicorée amère, chicorée bleue, chicorée commune | Zichorie, Sonnenwedel, Wegwarte, Blaue Distel, Kaffeezichorie, Sonnenkraut, Sonnenwirbel, Wegtritt, Wegwächter, Wilde Zichorie | radicchio selvatico, cicoria selvatico |
| radicchio | radicchio | Radicchio, Roter Chicorée, Rote Endivie, Veroneser Radicchio | radicchio, radicchio rosso, radicchio di Verona, radicchio di Treviso, etc. |
Belgian endive |
chicon |
Bleichzichorie, Treibzichorie |
cicoria belga |
To sort out all the cichorium species, varieties, and cultivars, see: http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Cichorium.html
So now on to
[ Georgics I | Georgics II | Georgics III | Georgics IV ]
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