(involucre spines likened to a dog's tooth). Composite. Artichoke and Cardoon.

Thistle-like perennial herbs, mostly coarse, and sometimes prickly: leaves commonly large, variously lobed or pinnatisect: head large, terminating important branches, the corollas violet, blue, or white; involucre broad or nearly globular, with bracts in many series and more or less enlarged at the base; receptacle fleshy and plane, bristly; corolla slender-tubed, 5-parted, not ligulate: fruit a thick glabrous compressed or 4-angled achene with a truncate apex. -Ten or a dozen species in the Medit. region and Canary Isls., two of which are grown as garden vegetables.

Cardunculus, Linn. Cardoon (which see). Robust, to 6 ft. tall and more: stem grooved: leaves very large, deeply pinnatifid, grayish green above and whitish beneath, prominently spiny: heads purple-flowered, with sharp-pointed scales. S. Eu., but extensively run wild on the pampas of S. Amer. B.M. 3241. - in cultivation, the thickened If . - stalks or ribs are blanched and used as a pot-herb, and the root is also edible.

Scolymus, Linn. Artichoke (which see). Not so stout, usually 3-5 ft.: leaves less pinnatifid and spiny: scales of involucre broad, thickened at base, unarmed: heads larger than in C. Cardunc-ulus, the receptacle enlarged and fleshy. - Probably a derivative of the last. L. H. B.