SCOLYMUS (see that article Encyc.) is, by Pliny and Theophrastus, reckoned to belong to the genus of the thistles. The former says, that, like most others of the same kind, the seeds were covered by a sort of wool (pappus). It had a high stem, surrounded with leaves, which were prickly, but which ceased to sting when the plant withered. It flowered the whole summer through, and had often flowers and ripe seed at the same time; which is the case also with our artichoke plants. The calyx of the scolymus was not prickly; the root was thick, black, and sweet, and contained a milky juice. It was eaten both raw and cooked; and Theophrastus observes, as something very remarkable, that when the plant was in flower, or, as others explain the words, when it had finished blowing, it was most palatable. What renders this circumstance singular is, that most milky roots used for food lose their milk, and become unfit to be eaten as soon as they have blown. This is the case with the goat's beard, which is eatable only the first year.
Professor Beckmann has, with much labour and erudition, endeavoured to ascertain what is really the plant which was known to the ancients by the name of scolymus. He seems to have proved sufficiently, that it was not the edulus, the carduus, or the cina; but he has not been able to come to any other conclusion. "Were I appointed or condemned (says he) to form a new Latin dictionary, I should explain the article scolymus in the following manner: Planta composita, capitata. Caulis longus, obtusus foliis spinosis. Radix carnea, lactescens, nigra, dulcis, edulis. Calix squamis intermixtis, disco carneo, ante efflorescentiam eduli. Semina papposa. Turiones edules. This description, short as it is, contains every thing that the ancients have said in order to characterize that plant."