BOTANICAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE OF SORGHUM. 39 



SEVENTEENTH CENTURY WRITERS. 



The writers of the seventeenth century began to separate the plant 

 into varieties or races, based chiefly on the color of the seeds. Bauhin 

 (1623), under the general heading " Milium Eiusque Species, 11 names, 

 with copious synonymy and brief description, five different kinds, the 

 first two of which, "Milium semine luteo vel albo " and "Milium 

 semine nigro" are probably not sorghums. The last three, however, 

 "Milium sabceum" "Milium arundinaceum subrotundo semine, 



Sorgo nominatum" and "Milium arundinaceum piano alboque semine, 

 Sorgo simile granum, Hareomen Arabum, Bellonio," are almost cer- 

 tainly different varieties of sorghum. The first of these three is not 

 described, but as the name is derived from Saba, the capital city 

 of Sabsea, in Arabia, the plant may have been the same as the third 

 form. The second is the form which was then commonly grown in 

 southern Europe and which had been described and figured by many 

 earlier writers. The third, from the description and synonymy, is 

 clearly the white-seeded durra of Arabia mentioned by Avicenna, 

 RauAvolf, and others. Two distinct varieties are here discussed, the 

 common European form w T ith reddish seeds and an Arabian variety 

 with white seeds, the latter probably a form of white durra. 



Parkinson (1040) describes sorghum under the title " Melica sive 

 sorghum, Indian Millet." He uses the same figure as several other 

 authors, namely, that of L/Obel. Evidently only one variety is in 

 his thought and that one the common and long-cultivated form. Of 

 the white, flat-seeded variety lit 1 makes no mention. 



Caspar Bauhin (1058) gives full descriptions of the two sorghums 

 he had merely listed under Milium arundinaceum in his k ' Pinax " 

 (1623). These were the common sorghum of Europe and the white- 

 seeded sorghum of Arabia. The common form he describes as pro- 

 ducing from one seed 4 to 5, or more, stout and somewhat sweet 

 culms, with leaves H feet long and 3 to 4 inches wide, and erect heads 

 9 inches long and 4 to 5 inches in width, containing abundant seeds, 

 mostly reddish or deep red, occasionally pale or yellowish in color. 

 This sorghum had been introduced from India into Spain, Italy, and 

 elsewhere. Bauhin thus holds the sorghum of Europe to be but a 

 single variety or species, the milium indicum of Pliny. His figure 

 is that of Mattioli, sixty years before. The white-seeded form of 

 Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor he notes as having a culm 

 similar to corn or sugar cane, to 12 feet high, filled with sweet pith, 

 from which the natives extract, by chewing, a sweet juice, and 

 bearing a beautiful white panicle 6 inches long, containing hard and 

 brilliantly white, flattened seeds. From the white durra now grown 

 extensively in the same region this form apparently differs in two 

 important respects — the sweet juice and the erect heads. Bauhin 



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