Mary E. Barkworth

Plants annual or perennial. Culms 50-500+ cm; internodes solid. Leaves not aromatic, basal and cauline; auricles absent; ligulesmembranous and ciliate or of hairs; blades usually flat. Inflorescences terminal, panicles with evident rachises; primary branches whorled, compound, the ultimate units rames; rames with most spikelets in heterogamous sessile-pedicellate spikelet pairs, terminal spikelet unit on each rame usually a triplet of 1 sessile and 2 pedicellate spikelets, rame axes without a translucent median line; disarticulation in the rames below the sessile spikelets, sometimes also below the pedicellate spikelets (cultivated taxa not or only tardily disarticulating). Sessile spikelets dorsally compressed, calluses blunt or pointed; lower glumes dorsally compressed and rounded basally, 2-keeled or winged distally, 5-15-veined, usually unawned; upper glumes 2-keeled, sometimes awned; lower florets reduced to hyaline lemmas; upper florets pistillate or bisexual, lemmas hyaline, sometimes awned. Pedicels slender, neither appressed nor fused to the rame axes. Pedicellate spikelets staminate or sterile, well-developed, often subequal to the sessile spikelets in size. x = 10. Name from the Italian word for the plant, sorgho.

T.A. Cope (1995) Sorghum. Flora of Somalia 4:252-253.

Plants annual or perennial, mostly robust, with or without rhizomes. Leaves: Ligulesusually membranous or sscarious, rarely a line of hairs. Inflorescences large and paniculate, with persistent branches bearing short, fragile, spikelike branches of sessile-pedicellate spikelets pairs; internodes and pedicels filiform. Sessile spikelets dorsally compressed; calluses obtuse; lower glumes coriaceous, broadly convex across the back, becoming 2-keeled and narrowly winged towards the top, usually hairy; lower florets reduced to hyaline lemmas; upper lemmas hyaline, 2-toothed, unawned or awned from the sinus, awns glabrous. Pedicellate spikelets male or sterile, linear lanceolate to subulate, usually much narrower than the sessile spikelets, unawned.

Sorghum includes 18 species. They are native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. One species, Sorghum bicolor, widely grown, with different cultivars having been developed for different purposes. It is grown in Somaliland and Somalia as a cereal. Three other species and one hybrid grow in Somaliland and Somalia. 

Key to the species (including the hybrid species) growing in Somaliland and Somalia. 

Global distribution of Sorghum.

Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.