44 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF OUR GARDEN VEGETABLES. 



CHAPTER V. 



GEEEN VEGETABLES (continued). 

 CABDOON AND GLOBE ABTICHOKE. 



THESE two plants were formely regarded as distinct species, Cynara 

 Scolymus, L., and C, Cardunculus, L., respectively; but now they 

 are considered varieties of the same plant, a native of South Europe 

 and North Africa. Indeed, Linnaeus quotes Bauhin as saying that 

 the latter will spring from the seed of the former. 



Parkinson (1629) appears to be the first to call the Cardoon Car- 

 duns esculentus i.e. " edible thistle " though it is recorded as having 

 been introduced in 1658 and cultivated in Holyrood Palace Garden in 

 1683. " It has been more cultivated on the Continent than here. The 

 only parts eaten are the inner leaf-stalks and the top of the stalk called 

 the receptacle of the florets when blanched and used in stews, soups, 

 and salads." It is one of the European plants which has spread to an 

 enormous extent over the prairies of South America. 



Dioscorides uses the word Kinara, and Pliny Scolumos, which he 

 also calls Limonia, and classes it among thistles. He is probably 

 referring to the Cardoon in saying, " There is one plant the cultiva- 

 tion of which is extremely profitable and of which I am unable to 

 speak without a certain degree of shame; for it is a well-known fact 

 that some small plots of land planted with thistles (scolymos) in the 

 vicinity of Great Carthage, and of Corduba more particularly, produce 

 a yearly income of six thousand sesterces [about 26] , this being the 

 way in which we make the monstrous productions even of the earth 

 subservient to our gluttonous appetites, and that, too, when the four- 

 footed brutes instinctively refuse to touch them 1 " Pliny also says it 

 has numerous medicinal virtues. In his " History of Plants," Dodoens 

 describes three kinds of Scolymus, or "Wilde thistle "; one, he says, 

 " might well be called Carduus asinus that is to say, Asse thistell. " 

 In his plates (1559) he figures both Scolymus, or Cinara, as Articoca 

 of Italy, and Cinarae aliud genus as the Chardons of Italy. He 

 describes it as much more spinescent and less used as food. 



Gerard (1597) gives a good figure of the Artichoke (3 inches in 

 diameter), which he calls Cinara maxima anglica, " the great red Arti- 

 choke." A second differing but little is the C. m. alba. A third, 

 C. sylvestris, or " wilde Artichoke," is much more spinescent, and is 

 called Cardino by the Italians, Chardon by the French, from the Latin 

 carduus ; hence Cardoon. 



Parkinson (1640) alludes to a statement of Theophrastus (fourth 



