GARDEN SPECIALTIES 233 



It is known that some of the thistles are palat- 

 able when cooked, tasting not unlike the dande- 

 lion. There is a thistle raised in South America 

 that is quite extensively used as food, and there is 

 a California thistle with a variegated leaf that is 

 sometimes eaten. These two are certainly good as 

 greens. Without a shadow of doubt their palata- 

 bility could be increased by selective breeding, 

 and this, with the removal of the thorns, would 

 give us a new garden vegetable of a type at pres- 

 ent rather sparsely represented. 



There is also an Old World thistle, known to 

 the botanist as Carduus marianus, that has found 

 its way to this country, growing wild by the road- 

 sides in California, that is sometimes used for 

 cooking. 



The flower buds, roots, leaves, and leafstalks 

 of this plant are edible — a very unusual exhibi- 

 tion of versatility scarcely duplicated by any 

 vegetable under cultivation. As this European 

 thistle is not distantly related to the French arti- 

 choke, and as it is edible even in its wild state, it 

 would seem to furnish good material for the 

 experiments of the plant developer. I have ob- 

 served that cultivation and freedom from crowd- 

 ing increase the size and succulent qualities of 

 this plant enormously. In other words it re- 

 sponds to cultivation readily, and have thought 



