Chicory faces the morning sun

Chicory

 Nearly everywhere I look right now I find a blooming chicory plant, usually dozens of the beautiful blue flower. Chicory is in that category of plant that some people consider a weed, but those are often the same people who think anything they didn’t plant in a garden is a weed. I come from a different stripe, one that appreciates a flower that is as independent as the chicory, able to grow in nearly any soil and as beautiful as the summer sky on a cloudless day.

This year chicory seems particularly profuse at Roundtop, in that cycle of life that waxes and wanes, some years in abundance and other times not quite so much. As the sun rises, the flowers turn towards it, the blue petals greeting the sun after the night’s darkness. They seem greedy for the day’s new light, but during the brightest part of the day, the flowers will often close, as though the sun grows too strong for them.  When the weather is cloudy or gloomy, the flowers stay out all day, brightening a dull day with that intense shade of blue.