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of this Helianthus as Girasole and Girasole del Canada. Never- 

 theless although Girasole del Canada may be occasionally used 

 by students of botany in a pseudo-scientific way, it is certainly 

 not the usual and popular term, which according to the evidence 

 of correspondents, botanical and simple, at Florence, Koine and 

 Naples, is now-a-daya topinambur or to/n/iabd. 



In any case the name Girasole del Canada could not have come 

 to us from Italy at the time when Colonna seems to have thought 

 that the plant was a native of tropical America. 



Smith's theory, at first sight, seems to require not only the use 

 of girasole, but its use in the special combination which he claims 

 of girasole articiocco. Yet in reality this particular combina- 

 tion is not necessary to account for "Jerusalem artichoke" on 

 the Italian hypothesis. It would be sufficient if we could prove 

 the use of girasole alone at the proper date, for the u artichoke" 

 would easily have been added to the " Jerusalem " by our own 

 J growers. Nevertheless the supposed girasole articiocco calls for 



some criticism : (1) this combination is not found in any Italian 



dictionary or botanical work; (2) it has never been heard by any 



» of the Italians of whom I have made inquiry; (3) it is in itself 



j extremely improbable, owing to the familiarity of all Italians, of 



every class, with the true artichoke, which would make them 



much less likely than the English or the Dutch to associate with it 



| a Helianthus: (4) the word articiocco is unknown in any part of 



Italy south of the Apennines, where carciofo is the universal 

 name for Cynara Caraunculus, articiocco and such allied forms 

 as arcicioffo, arclticiocco, artichiocch, etc., being confined to the 

 dialects of northern Italy. Consequently such a name could not 

 have come to us from Rome, whence these tubers were supposed 

 to have been introduced. 



These north Italian names are of some philological interest, 

 and like our own artichoke and the French artichaut were con- 

 sidered by Prince L. L. Bonaparte to have an entirelv different 

 origin from that of carciofo. In a uaper on the Neo-Latin names 

 for artichoke in the Academy for March 15th, 1884, reprinted in 

 Transactions of the Philological Society (1885) as App. iii., he 

 maintained that whilst the Italian carciofo comes from the Arabic 

 harshaf, and the Spanish alcachofa from harshaf preceded by the 

 article al, such forms as articiocco, artichaut and artichoke derive 

 through a Low-Latin art i coccus or arti cactus, by the addition 

 of the prefix arti, from Pliny's cactus and Theophrastus' kciktqs, 

 the name used by these ancients for the artichoke or cardoon.* 



To conclude: i. There never has existed such an Italian com- 

 bination as the girasole articiocco assumed by Smith ns the origin 

 •of our Jerusalem artichoke. 



ii. In the absence of any evidence that girasole was used for 

 any species of Helianthus till long after the name Jerusalem 

 artichoke had been adopted in England, it is difficult to see how 

 the suggested etymology can be defended. 



iii. Nevertheless, whilst the misapplication of the name 

 artichoke to a Helianthus is indigenous in England, and certainly 

 *did not come from Italv, it is not certain that our Jerusalem in 



* 



parte 



i; 



