Artichoke or Cardoon or Artichoke Thistle
 
Susan in Italy (here) left a comment on my post Walking for a Lemon Tart, Are those cardoons something like the artichokes in the first photo?  Ummm, the top picture was a picture of the cardoon from a distance, the bloom was a close up of the same. All my pictures of the cardoon are of the same plant.  Now I suspect that Susan already may know the answer to this and was being kind to me. Perhaps in my defense, I wasn’t out to identify anything more than a lemon tart and the lemon tart was elusive on my walk but the cardoon was very large.  So here’s a picture of an artichoke plant and a cluster of artichokes blooming. The leaves look much like the picture I took of the cardoon. On Monday when I walked by the cardoon yard, it was gone. Not just some of it. I mean it was all gone down to the dirt! What happened? Did they cut it to eat it or cut it so that it wouldn’t reseed it’s self? I understand the plant can be very invasive. I wish I know. I’ve never talked with anyone in the house. Now, this is a yard I have watched for about 5 years. The owners have put a huge amount of time and money into creating wonderful native landscaping on a city lot. It attracts a lot of attention. I think they got tired of people coming up to their front door to ask: What’s that beautiful plant with the red or yellow flower? So, one day I walked by and they had labels on everything. That’s how come I know it’s a cardoon. From my research, I find that the Cardoon, the Artichoke and the Thistle are all related. Who knew? Obviously not me. There is a lot more information at this site. I’m hearing rumors of Lemon Tart sightings in far away places. Perhaps more on that later. http://porcinichronicles.blogspot.com/ACDA9978-7168-4394-8E46-61E7C6321619.htmlhttp://hydra.usc.edu/langholz/images/artichoke%20plant.jpghttp://www.csupomona.edu/~crs/gallery/images/Artichoke%20flower%20cluster.jpghttp://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/artic068-s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/artic068.html&h=261&w=175&sz=6&tbnid=n1nrykrT3brg-M:&tbnh=107&tbnw=71&hl=en&start=16&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dartichoke%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DGshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4
Who Knew...Not Me
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
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