Are artichokes related to sunflowers

Answer 1

Yes.

What's commonly referred to as an artichoke should really be called a 'globe artichoke' to differentiate it from a 'Jerusalem artichoke' and the other varieties.

Sunflowers and (globe) Artichokes are from the same family Asteraceae, but so are daisies, chicory, safflower, and iceberg lettuce (and more than 20,000 other variety of plants)

The globe artichoke is from a variety of Thistle; and like a sunflower, the flower part will bloom and have seeds within the bloom. We just usually happen to eat them before that happens.

The Jerusalem artichoke, also called sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple or topinambour, is an actual species of sunflower classified as a type of Helianthus (a sub type of Asteraceae)

Aside from the two most common types (globe and jerusalem) there are at least a dozen other types of edible artichoke with a variety of names (chinese artichoke, etc). Some are sunflowers (or would be if allowed to bloom) such as the jerusalem while others more closely resemble thistles if not harvested first.

Essentially the choke can be harvested off of most variety of thistle or sunflower before it blooms, some are more edible than others. For example the Siena Artichoke has a heart soft enough to eat raw.