02 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Frequently cultivated as a salad, this annual, of the 

 Valerian family, is found wild throughout temperate 

 Europe to about the sixtieth degree of latitude, in 

 Southern Europe, in the Canary Isles, Madeira, and the 

 Azores, in the north of Africa, Asia Minor, and the 

 Caucasus.^ It often grows in cultivated ground, near 

 villages, etc., Avhicli renders it somewhat ditticult to 

 know where it grew before cultivation. It is mentioned, 

 iKnvever, in Sardinia and Sicily, in the meadows and 

 mountain pastures.^ I suspect that it is indigenous only 

 in these islands, and that everywhere else it is introduced 

 or naturalized. The grounds for this opinion are the fact 

 that no name which it seems possible to assign to this 

 l)lant has been found in Greek or Latin authors. We 

 cannot even name any botanist of the Middle Ages or 

 of the sixteenth century who has spoken of it. Neither 

 is it mentioned anionic the veci'etables used in France in 



o o 



the seventeenth century, either by the Jardinier Fraugais 

 of 1G'31, or by Laurenberg's \vovk, Hurt icidt lira (Frankfurt, 

 1G32). The cultivation and even the use of this sahid 

 a2^2:)ear to be modern, a fact which has not been noticed. 



Cardoon — Cynara carduncidus, Linniiius. 



Artichoke — Cynara scolymua, Linnaeus; C. cardun- 

 cidus, var. sativa, Moris. 



For a long time botanists have held the opinion that 

 the artichoke is probablv a form obtained bv cultivation 

 from the wild cardoon.^ Careful observations have lately 

 proved this hypothesis. Moris,"* for instance, having cul- 

 tivated, in the garden at Turin, the wild Sardinian plant 

 side by side with the artichoke, affirmed that true 

 characteristic distinctions no Ioniser existed. 



Willkomm and Lange,^ who have carefvdly observed 

 the plant in Spain, both wild and cultivated, share the 



* Krolc, Monographie des Valei-ianella, Stockholm, 186 i, p. 88; 

 Boissier, FJ. Orieyit., iii. p. 101. 



* Bertoloui, Fl. ItaL, i. p. 185; Moris, Fl. Sard., ii. p. 31 i; Gussone, 

 Synopsis Fl. SicuJoe, edit. 2, vol. i. p. 30. 



' Dodoens, Hist. Pla^it., p. 724; Linnaeus, Species, p. 11^9; De Can* 

 dolle, Prndr., vi. p. 620. 



* Moris, Fh^ra Sardoa, ii. p. 01. 



* Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. Fl. Hisp., ii. p. 180. 



