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milo, shattercane, sorghum

Habit Plants annual or sometimes short-lived perennials, 50–500 cm tall, culms solitary or clustered, not rhizomatous.
Culms

1–5 cm thick.

Leaves

blades flat, 5–100 mm wide, glabrous or slightly scabrous.

Inflorescences

open or dense, 5–60 × 3–30 cm, brown;

disarticulation tardy or not occurring.

Glumes

hard or leathery to membranous, glabrous to densely hairy;

keels winged.

Caryopses

exposed at maturity or not.

Sessile spikelets

3–9 mm; bisexual, dorsiventrally compressed.

Pedicellate spikelets

3–6 mm, staminate or sterile.

Upper lemmas

awnless or awned;

lemma awns; if present, 5–30 mm; bent and twisted.

Anthers

2–2.8 mm.

2n

=20, 40.

Sorghum bicolor

Distribution
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Disturbed areas, cultivated felds. 50–600m. Casc, Col, Sisk, WV. CA, ID, NV, WA; eastern Canada, throughout US; tropical and temperate regions worldwide. Exotic.

Sterile Sorghum bicolor plants may resemble corn.

Source Flora of Oregon, volume 1, page 480
Barbara Wilson, Richard Brainerd, Nick Otting
Sibling taxa
S. halepense
Synonyms Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor
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