Brief Details About Artichoke

Womenscorner Desk
September 23, 2020

The globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus), also known by the names French artichoke and green artichoke in the U.S. is a variety of a species of this cultivated as a food.

The edible portion of the plant consists of the flower buds before the flowers come into bloom. The budding artichoke flower-head is a cluster of many budding small flowers (an inflorescence), together with many bracts, on an edible base. Once the buds bloom, the structure changes to a coarse, barely edible form. Another variety of the same species is the cardoon, a perennial plant native to the Mediterranean region. Both wild forms and cultivated varieties (cultivars) exist.

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This vegetable grows to 1.4–2 m (4 ft 7 in–6 ft 7 in) tall, with arching, deeply lobed, silvery, glaucous-green leaves 50–83 cm (19 1⁄2–32 1⁄2 in) long. The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about 8–15 cm (3–6 in) diameter with numerous triangular scales; the individual florets are purple. The edible portions of the buds consist primarily of the fleshy lower portions of the involucral bracts and the base, known as the "heart"; the mass of immature florets in the center of the bud is called the "choke" or beard. These are inedible in older, larger flowers.