BOTAXY OF SORGHUM. 55 



a plant under the name of Shorglii, which is precisely the true popu- 

 lar name of the Sorgho in the East Indies. 



Jerome Fragus, in describing the plants of Germany, in 1552, gives 

 the description of the same plants, under the name of " Panicum Di- 

 oscorides et Plinii " (bread millet of Dioscorides and Pliny), thus 

 showing that the plant referred to by Pliny was the same as that men- 

 tioned by Dioscorides, the Greek, and was already cultivated in Ger- 

 many. 



Conrad Gesner, in his Hortus Germania (German garden), in 1591, 

 names the same jilant Sorghum. 



Matthioli, an Italian, in his Commentaries on Dioscorides, in 

 1595, describes it under the name of Milium Indicum (Indian 

 millet). 



Lobel, a Belgian, in 1576, describes the plant as the " Sorgho 

 melica Italorum " (sweet sorghum of the Italians). 



Dodon, a Belgian, in 1583, iu'hisPemptades, names it "melica, sive 

 sorghum " (honey, or sorghum). 



It will be observed, here, that a distinction is made in these plants, 

 then cultivated in Italy and Germany — reference being made to the 

 sweet character of one variety. And a Roman writer, Lucian, the 

 Syrian poet, who wrote about the second century, says, verse 237, Book 

 III, " Quique bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos" (Those who 

 drink the sweet juices from the tender cane), may refer to Sorghum 

 saccharatum. 



Belloni speaks of it as Sorghum Insubrum, thus locating it as al- 

 ready established in Northern Italy. 



Lonicer, a German, 1589, and Gerarde, an Englishman, 1597, de- 

 scribe several varieties of sorghum, as sorghum panicum loculere. 



Bester, a German, 1613, also describes it as milium Plinii : thus 

 showing that the plant described by Pliny had been cultivated in Eu- 

 rope from his day down to the seventeenth century. 



In 1623, Gasper Bauhin, in his Pinax, includes all the above names 

 as synonyms, under the descriptive phrase of " milium arundinaceum 

 subrotundo semine, sorgo uominatum " (a reed-like mUlet, with nearly 

 round seed, called sorgo), and with the observation, that the seed varies 

 in color from a brownish red to black, and from white to yellow ; 

 these names represent one or more species. 



And, in his Historia Plantarum, Liber XVIII., Art. Sorghi, Bau- 

 hin, says of the seed : 



" Appensa haeret copiosissima, quae lentibus aequalia compressa non nihil 

 oblonga, nunc alba, nunc fusca et quandoque nigra." — It is in the greatest 



