Sorghum halepense |
Sorghum bicolor |
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Johnson grass |
grain sorghum, great millet, Milo, shattercane, sorghum |
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Habit | Plants perennial; rhizomatous. | Plants annual or short-lived perennials; often tillering, without rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 50-200 cm tall, 0.4-2 cm thick; nodes appressed pubescent; internodes glabrous. |
50-500+ cm tall, 1-5 cm thick, sometimes branching above the base; nodes glabrous or appressed pubescent; internodes glabrous. |
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Panicles | 10-50 cm long, 5-25 cm wide, primary branches compound, terminating in rames of 1-5 spikelet pairs; disarticulation usually beneath the sessile spikelets, sometimes also beneath the pedicellate spikelets. |
5-60 cm long, 3-30 cm wide, open or contracted, primary branches compound, terminating in rames with 2-7 spikelet pairs; disarticulation usually not occurring or tardy. |
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Caryopses | not exposed at maturity. |
often exposed at maturity. |
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Pedicels | 1.8-3.3 mm. |
1-2.6 mm. |
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Ligules | 2-6 mm, membranous, conspicuously ciliate; blades 10-90 cm long, 8-40 mm wide. |
1-4 mm; blades 5-100 cm long, 5-100 mm wide, sometimes glabrous. |
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Sessile | spikelets bisexual, 3.8-6.5 mm long, 1.5-2.3 mm wide; calluses blunt; glumes indurate, shiny, appressed pubescent; upper lemmas unawned, or with a geniculate, twisted awn to 13 mm; anthers 1.9-2.7 mm. |
spikelets bisexual, 3-9 mm, lanceolate to ovate; calluses blunt; glumes coriaceous to membranous, glabrous, densely hirsute, or pubescent, keels usually winged; upper lemmas unawned or with a geniculate, twisted, 5-30 mm awn; anthers 2-2.8 mm. |
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Pedicellate | spikelets staminate, 3.6-5.6 mm; glumes membranous to coriaceous, unawned. |
spikelets 3-6 mm, usually shorter than the sessile spikelets, staminate or sterile. |
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2n | = 20, 40; several dysploid counts also reported. |
= 20, 40. |
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Sorghum halepense |
Sorghum bicolor |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; MI; MO; MS; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; HI; PR; ON
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AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; FL; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WY; HI; PR; ON; QC; Virgin Islands
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Discussion | Sorghum halepense is native to the Mediterranean region. It is sometimes grown for forage in North America, but it is considered a serious weed in warmer parts of the United States. It hybridizes readily with S. bicolor, and derivatives of such hybrids are widespread. The annual Sorghum xalmum Parodi, which has wider (2-2.8 mm) sessile spikelets with more veins in the lower glumes (13-15 versus 10-13) than S. halepense, is one such derivative. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Sorghum bicolor was domesticated in Africa 3000 years ago, reached northwestern India before 2500 B.C., and became an important crop in China after the Mongolian conquest. It was introduced to the Western Hemisphere in the early sixteenth century, and is now an important crop in the United States and Mexico. Numerous cultivated strains exist, some of which have been formally named. They are all interfertile with each other and with other wild species of Sorghum. The treatment presented here is based on de Wet (1978) and is somewhat artificial. Sorghum bicolor subsp. arundinaceum is the wild progenitor of the cultivated strains, all of which are treated as S. bicolor subsp. bicolor. These strains tend to lose their distinguishing characteristics if left to themselves. They will also hybridize with subsp. arundinaceum, and these hybrids can backcross to either parent, resulting in plants that may strongly resemble one parent while having some characteristics of the other. All such hybrids and backcrosses are treated here as S. bicolor subsp. xdrummondii. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 628. | FNA vol. 25, p. 628. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Sorghum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Sorghum | ||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | S. vulgare | |||||||||
Name authority | (L.) Pers. | (L.) Moench | ||||||||
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