Angelo said: " And finally, most part of the classic cultivations of the Mediterranean, (in a wider sense including animals like goat, sheep, horse, dog etc) have a so long tradition that the wild ancestors are still unknown." Yes. I was surprised to find out that artichokes, although they have a botanical name, Cynara scolymus, are not known as a truly wild plant anywhere. Just as there is an obvious connection between Crocus sativus and C. cartwrithgianus, there is the obvious similarity between Cynara scolymus and C. cardunculus, the cardoon. But in either case, what exactly is the significance of that connection? Garlic provides another example. Garlic is a mystery plant (an odd way to put it in discussing a plant whose odor would give it away in a mob scene). Garlic is not raised from seed. All of the existing culinary garlics, and there are dozens of them divided into soft-neck and hard-neck sorts, may actually be the somatically mutated descendents of one plant. In other words, it's possible that all of the varied culinary garlics are an ancient and vary variable clone. Yum yum. Let's have PBS foodie week. Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where as is probably apparent, I'm hungry again.