SUMMARY. 49 



Barbary States is nearly identical with that of southwestern Asia, 

 and doubtless has resulted from the Arab invasion of Africa. 



In all of southwestern Asia, including Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, 

 Turkestan, and perhaps a part of Persia, the single variety is a white 

 durra, equivalent to our American form. 



India contains a bewildering confusion of little-known forms. 

 Many of them approximate the durra group; many are forms of 

 shallu, the type of the Roxburghii group; while some represent en- 

 tirely new groups of sorghum. A large number tested in this country 

 have proved very poor yielders of grain. 



East China and Manchuria are the home of a new group, the 

 kowliangs, with several well-marked varieties. One sorgo variety 

 has long been cultivated at the mouth of the Yangtze River. All 

 these are well adapted to growth under the conditions obtaining in 

 our sorghum belt. 



The larger islands near the coast of Asia show a few forms, appar- 

 ently derived from the mainland. 



Europe received a sorghum variety from India during the first 

 century, A. D. Only two or three forms of the sorgo type had been 

 obtained, either through importation or evolution, up to about one 

 hundred and thirty years ago. Only broom corn and a few sorgos 

 are now found there. 



No cultivated sorghums are native to the New World. Probably 

 the earliest introduction was the Guinea kafir in the West Indies. 



Scattering introductions have appeared in the United States since 

 early colonial days. With the exception of broom corn, none was 

 permanent until the arrival of the sorgo group about fifty-five years 

 ago, followed by the durras and kafirs about twenty years later, shallu 

 about twenty years ago, and the kowliangs recently. 



BOTANICAL HISTORY AND CLASSIFICATION. 



Sorghum was first known in Europe as Milium indicum, or Indian 

 millet, in reference to its origin. Many similar names were applied 

 later. 



The common name sorghum, or sorgo, was derived more than three 

 hundred and sixty years ago from the Latin word " surgo," meaning 

 to rise or tower, in reference to the height of sorghums in comparison 

 with that of other crops. 



During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries the 

 European forms were named and described, with occasional figures, 

 by many pre-Linnean botanists. 



The earliest accepted binomial is Holcus son/hum L., 1T53. 



175 



