1887] History of Garden Vegetables. 525 
of Myddvai, and caraway was certainly in use in England at 
the close of the fourteenth century, and is named in Turner’s 
“ Libellus,” 1538, as also in “The Forme of Cury,’ 1 
Caraway appears as a wild plant in Iceland, Scandinavia, Fin- 
land, Arctic, Central, and Southern Russia, Persia, and in Siberia ; 
also Eastern France, Spain, Central Europe, America, and the 
Caucasus, as well as in the Western Himalayas. It is largely 
cultivated in a distinct variety in Morocco. In commerce the 
seed is received from Finmark, Finland, and Russia, Prussia, 
Holland, and Morocco. 
This plant is cultivated in gardens for its under leaves, which 
are used for flavoring soups and salads, and for its seeds, which 
are often mixed with bread, or in making “ seed-cakes,” and in 
Germany are put into certain cheeses. The root is tender, and 
is better than a parsnip, as was observed by Parkinson and Ray ; 
and Vilmorin, in 1883, says it can be so used, but this use now 
is probably very infrequent. 
‘Caraway is called, in France, carvi, anis des Vosges, cumin des 
pres; in Germany, Kummel; in Holland, karvit; in Denmark, 
kommen ; in'Italy, carvi ; in Spain, carvi, alcaravea ; in Portugal, 
alcaravia ;? in Arabic, karaoweh,; or curweeyas 
Carpoon. Cynara cardunculus. L. 
The cardoon is indigenous in the Mediterranean region, but 
has become naturalized elsewhere, as in Banda Oriental, where 
several hundred square miles have become covered by one 
mass of these prickly plants, and are impenetrable by man or 
beast. The cultivated plant is little grown in England or 
in America, but in France, Italy, and generally in Europe the 
stalks and inner leaves, rendered white and tender by blanching, 
are in esteem. To the ancient Romans it was well known and 
cultivated for the footstalks, as at present. Pliny’ complains of 
the great price that monstrous-grown specimens brought at 
Rome, and that especially fine varieties came from Carthago and 
Corduba, in Spain. In more recent times, Ruellius,® in 1536, 
speaks of the use of the herb as a food, after the manner of 
1 Pharmacographia, (ie 304. = Vilmorin, Les Pl.. Pot., 72. 
3 Delile, Fl. Ægypt, i 4 Birdwood, Veg. Prod. of Bombay, 39, 237. 
5 Darwin, Voy. of a ag i. 153. © Targioni-Tozzetti, Hort. Trans., 1854, I 
7 Pliny, lib. xix. c. 43. 8 Ruellius, De Nat. Stirp., 1536, 643. 
t 
