Perennials (sometimes flowering first year). Leaves: blades of basal 5-35+ × 1-8(-12+) cm; cauline similar, smaller, narrower, distal mostly linear. Peduncles mostly 0-2 mm, some narrowly clavate, 12-45(-85+) mm. Phyllaries: outer 5-6 lance-ovate to lanceolate, 4-7 mm, basally cartilaginous, distally herbaceous, inner 8+ lance-linear to linear, 6-12 mm, herbaceous, all usually with some gland-tipped hairs 0.5-0.8 mm on margins near bases or on abaxial faces toward tips. Cypselae 2-3 mm; pappi 0.01-0.2 mm. 2n = 18. Flowering Apr-Jul. Disturbed sites; 0-1500 m; introduced; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ark., Calif., Conn., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Maine, Mass., Mich., Mo., Nev., N.H., N.Y., N.C., Pa., R.I., Tex., Utah, Vt.; Europe; Asia; introduced also in Africa, South America. Leaves of Cichorium intybus are sometimes used as salad greens; the roasted roots are sometimes ground and used as an addition to (or adulterant of) coffee.
Perennial 3-17 dm from a long taproot; lower lvs oblanceolate, petiolate, toothed or more often pinnatifid, 8-25 נ1-7 cm, becoming reduced, sessile, and entire or merely toothed upwards; heads to 4 cm wide in fl, mainly matutinal, sessile or short-pedunculate, borne 1-3 together in the axils of the much reduced upper lvs, the long branches thus racemiform; invol 9-15 mm, its outer bracts loose, fewer than the inner and at least half as long, becoming callous-thickened at base; achenes 2-3 mm, pappus-scales numerous, minute, narrow; 2n=18. Roadsides, fields, and waste places; native of Europe, now a cosmopolitan weed. June-Oct.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.