Artichokes are closely related to the thistles you see growing as weeds along roadsides and in abandoned fields.  This became very apparent to us when we let our cardoon (the wild relative of the artichoke) go to flower.  We decided to abandon our interest in the cardoon as a food and have instead enjoyed its striking purple flower head.

Our neighborhood bees have also been loving the flowers.  Everytime I look at the cardoon, there at least one or two bees nestled in the flowerhead.