Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 51: 577580, 2004.

# 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

577

Short note

Wild artichokes of south Italy: did the story begin here?w

Domenico Pignone* and Gabriella Sonnante
CNR Institute of Plant Genetics, Via Amendola 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy; *Author for correspondence
(e-mail: domenico.pignone@igv.cnr.it)
Received 13 June 2003; accepted in revised form 19 December 2003

Key words: Cynara cardunculus, Domestication, Variation, Wild germ plasm collection

Abstract
A collection of wild artichokes (Cynara cardunculus L. var. sylvestris (Lam.) Fiori) was conducted in south
Italy. The distribution of the wild populations was not even all over the explored territory, from the coastline
to the inner mountains, and in some areas wild artichokes were completely absent. A certain level of
morphological variation for height and habit of plants, size and shape of capitula, length, shape, and
position of bracteal spines, was observed. It has been noticed that picking capitula from the wild for
human consumption is a common habit in southern Italy and Sicily. Historical data and etnobotanic
inference suggest the idea that the artichoke could have been domesticated in south Italy, and Sicily in
particular, and was spread by the Arabs to other regions of the Mediterranean Basin.

Within the framework of a project aimed at studying

the genetic variability within cultivated artichokes
(Cynara cardunculus L. var. scolymus (L.) Fiori)
and between these and the wild artichoke
(C. cardunculus L. var. sylvestris (Lam.) Fiori)
gene pool, collecting missions in the south of Italy
were carried out in order to secure wild artichoke
germ plasm from Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria
regions (Figure 1). Much evidence indicates that
C. cardunculus var. sylvestris can be considered
the wild progenitor of the cultivated artichoke
(Wiklund 1992; Basnizki and Zohary 1994;
Rottenberg and Zohary 1996; Rottenberg et al.
1996). It is distributed in the Mediterranean
Basin, including the inner areas and the islands,
and it is also found in south Portugal, in the
Canary and Azores Islands.
The collecting trips allowed the identification of
many sites where wild artichokes were present. The

Institute of Plant Genetics Publication, No. 32

distribution of populations of this taxon was not

even all over the explored territory; in some
instances very small populations with isolated individuals were observed, while in other cases the
populations were very large, with a high number
of individuals covering a range of several kilometres. Collecting sites were selected taking into
account the outcrossing nature of this species; in
particular, in the case of continuous populations,
collecting sites were selected when some natural
feature introduced a discontinuity into the population or forced plants into a different environmental
condition.
As a general rule, in all the regions examined,
wild artichokes avoid shallow calcareous ground,
preferring deeper sandy, clayey and loamy soils
with high sun exposure. Often they grow in association with other Cardueae which apparently
show the same edaphic preference such as
Onopordum illyricum L., Carthamus lanatus L.,
Carduncellus caeruleus (L.) C. Presl, Silybum
marianum (L.) Gaertn., etc. Large populations

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Figure 1. Map of the collection territory; dotted lines encircle sampling areas.

were found mostly near the coastline, while in

internal areas, at altitudes not higher than 150 m
a.s.l. populations were smaller and sparser. Also in
these cases though, there was not a clear-cut
separation from the coastal environment. True
hill areas appeared poor in wild artichokes. The
inner parts of Basilicata and Puglia appear to
have a lesser occurrence of wild artichoke, which
are sometimes found in sparse populations such as
in the Daunian Sub-Appennine (Accogli, personal
communication) and Pollino National Park
(Bernardo 1995). It is also worth noticing that
also in the southern part of Puglia, in the area

called Salento lying between the Adriatic and the

Ionian seas, wild artichokes are more rare, possibly
due to the highly calcareous nature of that land.
As maturation time is considered it was noticed
that a geographic gradient is evident, with plants
from the southern range of the explored territory
maturing 34 weeks earlier than those from the
northern area.
From a morphological point of view a certain
level of variation was observed, regarding mostly
the height and habit of plants, the size and shape of
capitula, the length, shape, and position of the
spines on the bracts (Figure 2AC). Wiklund

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Figure 2. (AC) Capitula from different populations showing

variation for spine length and shape and bract colour. (D) Stem
of a wild artichoke cut earlier for harvesting capitula.

(1992) reported the existence of two subspecies of

wild cardoon: C. cardunculus. subsp. cardunculus
and C. cardunculus subsp. flavescens Wikl. differing
mainly by a yellowish margin on the middle involucral bracts. These two subspecies should coexist
in the very south of Italy and Sicily but, due to the
advanced stage of maturation of the plants this
difference was not observed.
During the mission, in areas where artichokes
have been cultivated in the past, some individuals
with peculiar characters were observed, which do
not allow their definition as wild germ plasm.
These individuals might be plants derived from
cultivated artichoke or leafy cardoon (C. cardunculus
L. var. altilis DC., the other cultivated taxon of
this species) seeds, which show segregating morphological characters. Nevertheless it cannot
be excluded completely that these individuals
might be the result of a natural hybridization
event between cultivated and wild plants. At
present morphological characters alone might not
be discriminating enough to reach a conclusion,
but the use of molecular markers such as RAPDs,
SSRs, AFLPs, etc. (Sonnante et al. 2002, 2003,
2004) might help elucidate the real nature of the
plants observed.
It is very interesting to notice that it is customary
for people to collect young capitula of wild artichokes and use them in cooking (Caneva et al.
1997). This habit is particularly intense in
Calabria and its occurrence increases moving

south, as we have perceived by the high number

of cut stems found in wild plants (Figure 2D). It is
possible that this is the way the ancient Romans
used artichokes, since it is still questioned whether
the Romans did cultivate the artichoke (Bianco
1990); in fact they, like the Greeks, probably did
not know the cultivated types we know today, but
picked capitula from the wild for their own consumption (Pignatti 1982). This might be the real
reason why the artichokes were food for rich
people and for special occasions.
This same habit of using wild artichokes as food
is diffused in Sicily and in Sardinia; interestingly in
this latter region there are some speciality food
industries selling canned wild artichokes or
wild cardoons in olive oil; nevertheless looking
at the advertising pictures, often cultivated
Spinoso types are depicted together with the product, thus it appears that that wild is used for
spiny (e.g., http://www.bottargasardegna.com/
sottoli_dett.html). It is interesting also to note
that some farmers in the south are willing to cultivate true wild artichokes for their own consumption (Sarli, personal communication).
The habit of picking from the wild in southern
Italy and Sicily, the fact that the more primitive
cultivated artichokes are the Spinoso type, that
more than others resemble wild artichokes due to
the presence of spines, the high diffusion of
Spinoso in Sicily and Sardinia, all these occurrences seem to indicate an association between the
presence of wild artichokes and their domestication. In this framework it appears that south
Italy, and Sicily in particular, is an ideal candidate
as the homeplace of artichoke domestication.
As a matter of fact the domestication of artichokes is still obscure. According to De Candolle,
it appears that artichoke was unknown to the
Egyptians and to the Hebrews; Teophrastus
(3rd4th century BC) reported that it was cultivated in Sicily but not in Greece (Montelucci
1962). In the Middle Ages the presence of artichokes is some times associated with the Arabs;
the modern names for this plant, in fact, largely
derive from the Arabic al kharshuff . The Arabs
dominated Sicily for over 200 years beginning from
the 9th century. The first records of artichoke diffusion relate to Filippo Strozzi who brought this
plant possibly from Sicily to Florence (Bianco
1990). These reports further support the idea that

580
the artichoke was domesticated in Sicily and spread
by the Arabs to the regions where nowadays it is a
crop of primary importance.
Montelucci (1962) proposed that Etruria, a
historical region north of Rome, was the birthplace
of cultivated artichoke, but his idea nowadays
appears not supported by recent understanding of
the genetic variation in this crop. In the framework
of the proposed domestication hypothesis, the present collection of wild germ plasm, the future ones
already planned in the distribution area of wild
artichokes in Italy and other Mediterranean countries, and the study of the genetic variation in the
sampled areas, might shed a light of understanding
on this question.

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