Artichoke.
Botanical name:
Cinara.
THE root of the common artichoke, or hartichoke, cultivated for our tables, is an excellent medicine. The plant itself is of the thistle-kind, and its head, which we see at table, owes much of its bigness and fleshiness to culture. The leaves are large, and divided into many parts, and often they are prickly. The stem is robust and striated, and the head is formed of large scales; the flowers are of the thistle-kind, and the seeds are, as in the thistles, winged with down.
The root fresh gathered, sliced, and boiled in water, six ounces to a quart of the water, makes a decoction, which works by urine, and I have known it alone cure a jaundice.
