10. Sorghum Moench (sorghum)

Plants annual or perennial. Flowering stems erect, unbranched, circular in cross‑section, hairy at the nodes. Leaf sheaths rounded on the back, glabrous except sometimes at the very tip, the ligule a short membrane with a hairy (fringed) margin. Leaf blades usually glabrous except at the base, flat, the midvein thickened. Inflorescences dense panicles, 10–50 cm long, the branches ascending to spreading at maturity, ending in small spikelike racemes with 2–6 nodes, with a yellow, yellowish brown, purplish brown, or sometimes nearly black coloration, the hairs on the joints of the axis and the spikelet stalks 0.5–1.5 mm long, white or gray. Stalked spikelets staminate or less commonly sterile, about as long as, but narrower than, the sessile, perfect spikelets, the stalk 2.0–3.5 mm long, the lemmas awnless. Glumes of stalked spikelet 3.5–5.5 mm long, similar in size and shape, narrowly ovate, somewhat thickened but not hard, 5–9‑nerved, hairy along the margins. Sessile, perfect spikelets somewhat flattened laterally. Glumes of sessile, perfect spikelet 3.5–6.0 mm long, similar in size and shape, broadly elliptic‑ovate, broadly rounded to nearly flat on the back, faintly several‑nerved, hairy, shiny. Sterile basal floret reduced to a membranous, awnless lemma. Lemma of the perfect floret with the body 3–5 mm long, hairy (fringed) along the margins, the tip awnless or with an awn 5–15 mm long, this spirally twisted and bent near the base, often shed early. Anthers 2.0–2.7 mm long. About 20 species, native to tropical and warm‑temperate regions of the Old World.