BOTANICAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE OF SORGHUM. 45 

 RECENT PERIOD, 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



By the middle of the last century the conception of cultivated forms 

 of sorghum as species had been abandoned and the description of 

 them as horticultural and botanical varieties was begun. Olcott 

 (1857) published Leonard Wray's brief descriptions of his recently 

 introduced Natal varieties (fig. IT). Stewart (1867) reprinted these 

 descriptions, but neither attempted any classification. 



Beginnings of Classification. 



Pech (1865) published a provisional classification of the few sweet 

 varieties then known to him. Collier (1884) amplified Pech's out- 



IJbrrinn. 



liff/iiltir Sor(/o. 



Jfeetizana* 



Fig. 17. — Heads of throe sorghum varieties figured in 1861). " Liberian " is Wray's Koom- 

 bana, tbe present Sumac ; " Regular sorgo " is tbe Chinese variety ; and " Neeazana " is 

 the original form of Orange. 



line by inserting a number of recently developed saccharine varieties, 

 many of which were local strains that never became generally grown 

 and are not now identifiable. These two classifications were made on 

 a natural basis, and if fuller and more definite would be fairly usable, 

 though wrought out from confessedly imperfect material and insuffi- 

 cient field study and including only a limited number of forms, of 

 which all except one were sorgos. 



Koernicke (1885) presented the first attempted classification of 

 the cultivated forms of the whole world. He recognizes them as com- 

 prising a single species Andropogon sorghum (L.) Brot, and dis- 

 poses them in twelve varieties, grouped into two sections, Effusus and 

 Contractus, referring to the habit of the panicle. 



175 



