Marioalbertina's Fotothing

this is a great nature image, is it a member of the artichoke family?

No.
It is a wild flower of the Mediterranean flora. The shape is strange and looks like a pine cone or an artichoke but the content is fragile.
This flower blooms in the month of July in arid and stony place (Garrigue) and is protected from collection by a Ligurian law.

thanks for the info, the reason I asked was i posted one a while ago that looked very similar and I thought it might be from the same family:

http://www.fotothing.com/Petermosull/photo/5aa19f3bafc673a3a47f408e7cd2a7e4/

Lovely!

For Petermosull,

The flower show on Link is the thistle - Asteraceae family.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carduus

Beautiful tropical flower..:-))

a very nice picture !!

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