326 



to be decided whether other crops may iiot prove far more profit- 

 able upon the same soil. 



Dr. Charles Pickering remarked that he did not at all 

 dissent from the views presented by Mr. Sprague in his 

 paper. He was not prepared to say that the several vari- 

 eties of Broom Corn, Dourrha, &c., are not one and the 

 same species ; he subsequently furnished the Secretary 

 with the following summary of his observations of these 

 plants : — 



Sorghum Halepense. A coarse grass, with a sparse, few- 

 flowered panicle ; seen by Dr. Pickering only in the naturalized 

 state, and never under cultivation. In the East Indies, he found 

 it on Mindanao, seemingly wild, in] great profusion in the open- 

 ings of the forest. In Central Hindostan, the plant was growing 

 in a similar manner, but was rare ; as also, on the river flat of 

 Upper Egypt, where he again met with it. The S. Halepense 

 has been introduced into America ; he had seen it growing along 

 the irrigating canals at Callao, in Peru ; and specimens, in col- 

 lections of dried plants, from the Southwestern United States. 



Sorghum saccharatum. Distinguished by its wide spread- 

 ing panicle, with the branchlets subverticillate. Introduced into 

 America, and long known to cultivators under the name of 

 " Broom-corn." He did not happen to meet with this abroad. 



Sorghum vulgare. Panicles always more or less co- 

 ai'ctate. Seen by him only in the cultivated state, and never 

 naturalized. In Hindostan, (the most eastern country in which 

 he had seen it growing,) it varies in size, one kind being only 

 about two feet high ; while, in Egypt, he found it uniformly so 

 tall and stout-stemmed, as to be mistaken in the distance for In- 

 dian Corn. The tall, slender-stemmed variety, exhibited to the 

 Society as the Chinese sugar-sorglmm, is new to him, and was 

 not met with in any of the countries he had visited. 



The sorghums are all tropical plants, introduced into Egypt 

 and the countries around the Mediterranean from the southward, 

 from some district not beyond the limits of the East Indian 

 Archipelago. He saw nothing of them on the islands of the 

 Pacific. 



