38 



HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION OF SORGHUM. 



plant so recognized by Arduino (1786). L'Obel (1576) figures a 

 variety with more open panicles, like the early illustrations of the 

 Chinese sweet sorghum. Dodoens (1583) and Parkinson (1040) use 

 the same figure (fig. 11). Mattioli (1598) shows a different form 



(fig. 10), somewhat 

 intermediate in head 

 characters between the 

 other two. 



T r a g u s (1552) 

 speaks of the sweet 

 fodder produced by 

 sorghum. Many other 

 writers s p e a k of the 

 sweet seed, but the 

 word sweet, as used by 

 them, seems to refer to 

 the absence of an as- 

 tringent or bitter qual- 

 ity rather than to the 

 presence of any s a c - 

 charine character, 

 which would of course 

 not appear in the seeds. 

 None of these writers 

 makes direct reference 

 to a sweet juice con- 

 tained in the stems or 

 to the use of the plant 

 as a source of saccha- 

 rine matter, unless in- 

 deed the following 

 much-quoted words of 

 the poet Lucian, w h o 

 wrote presumably in 

 the second century 

 A. D., " Quique bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos," may be con- 

 strued as referring to sorghum. Except in describing the stalks as 

 tender, this description applies equally well to sugar cane, and it may 

 be only a bit of poetic license. 



Those who describe the plant speak of the seeds as red or reddish. 

 Some authors mention forms with seeds of various colors, from 

 white to black. Csesalpini (1583) states, however, that only the form 

 with purple spikelets is the plant commonly called sagina, or melica, 

 the others being the smaller millets. 



175 



Fig. 16. — Plant of sorghum, after Mattioli, 1598. 



