194 THE FLORIST AND 
of the weiglit of stalks. This quantity, says M. Vilmorin, would give the 
enormous result of 200 hectolitres (6000 galls.) to each hectare, (2.47 acres.) 
The analysis of the stalk gives the following result : 
Water, ....... 65.88 
Sugar, crystalizable and uncrystalizable, . . 18.64 
Nitrogenous matters, . . . . . 1.06 
Eesinous, fatty and coloring matters, . . 0.50 
■ Woody matters, ..... 15.41 
Salts, soluble in water, (sulphates and chlorides,) . 0.27 
Insoluble salts, . . . . . . 0.23 
Silica, . . . . . . 0.01 
100.00 
This plant, which seems to be about to take an important place in the 
list of our iiidustrial plants, was, as well as the Chinese igname, (Dioscorea) 
introduced by M. de Montigny, and made part of the same package sent 
to the Geographical Society. We are yet in doubt as to the botanical 
name by which it should be called. That of Holcus saccharatus is evidently 
an error, not that the plant is not the same as that known hereto- 
fore under that name, but because the portion of that genus characterized 
by the presence of a little male peduncled spikelet, by the side of each 
fertile spike has been rejected far from the genus HolcusmXo that of Andro- 
pogon or Sorghum. In all probability the species Sorghum vulgare [Andro- 
pogon Sorghum) ought t6 contain as varieties, the plant under considera- 
tion, as well as the Andropogon Oafra, hieolor, &c., of Kunth. A recent 
work, as yet unpublished, by M. Wray, which he has been so kind as to 
send us, mentions, on the south-west coast of Caffraria, fifteen varieties of 
this plant, and we have recognized in a collection of seeds from Abyssinia, 
sent to the Museum in 1840 by M. d'Abadie, and which contained thirty 
species or varieties of sorghum, some plants to which our attention has been 
drawn, especially by the sweet flavor of their stalks. Here are many causes 
of confusion, and at the same time the elements of a critical work on which, 
at our request, our co-laborer, M. Greenland, is occupied. I hope that his 
researches, aided by the comparative cultivation of several common varie- 
ties, can enable us to refer these varieties to the botanical tj'^pes from which 
they are derived. Meanwhile, the name of Holcus saccharatus must be 
adopted provisionally, since, although evidently inexact as to generic 
characters, it has the advantage of being known and of never having been 
; applied to other plants. 
