or CYNARA, which we translate artichoke, is, according to Professor Beckmann, the name which was given by the ancients to a plant very different from the artichoke of our kitchen-gardens, though he admits that they belong to the same genus. The proofs which he adduces for the truth of his opinion are too tedious to be introduced into this Work, especially as they appear not to us to be absolutely conclusive. We must therefore refer the reader to his History of Inventions. The cinara, carduus, and scolymus (see SCOLYMUS in this Supplement), were in his opinion species of the thistle, of which the roots and young shoots, as well as the bottom of the calyx of the leaf, were eaten. He has proved indeed, he thinks, that the Greeks and Romans used the pulpy bottom of the calyx, and the tenderest stalks and young shoots of many plants belonging to the thistle kind, in the same manner as we use artichokes and cardoons, but that these latter were unknown to them.

"It appears probable (says he) that the use of these thistles, at least in Italy and Europe in general, was in the course of time laid aside and forgotten, and that the