Sorghum timorense
Encyclopedia
Sorghum timorense, commonly known as Downs Sorghum, is an annual tropical Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n and Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

n grass native to the island of Timor
Timor
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...

, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in the northern portions of the states
States and territories of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a union of six states and various territories. The Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories, with the sixth state of Tasmania being made up of islands. In addition there are six island territories, known as external territories, and a...

 of Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, and Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 (flourishing in regions from Kimberley to Pilbara).

Description

Culms (30–300cm long × 7–13mm diam.) are upright or abruptly bent, smooth or lightly frosted with powdery granules, but softly hairy to beard
Beard
A beard is the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck of human beings. Usually, only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. However, women with hirsutism may develop a beard...

ed at the nodes, with few lateral branches. Root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...

s are non-nodal, but may be partially above the soil level, somewhat propping
Aerial root
Aerial roots are roots above the ground. They are almost always adventitious. They are found in diverse plant species, including epiphytes such as orchids, tropical coastal swamp trees such as mangroves, the resourceful banyan trees, the warm-temperate rainforest rātā and pōhutukawa Aerial roots...

 the plant up. Leaf sheaths are either hairless or minutely pubescent, sometimes lacking oral hairs, or bearded. Ligule
Ligule
A ligule — is a thin outgrowth at the junction of leaf and leafstalk of many grasses and sedges or a strap-shaped corolla, such as that of a ray floret in plants in the daisy family....

 (1.3–3.5mm long) lacks cilia. Smooth, or lightly haired leaf
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

-blades (30–60cm long × 5–10mm wide) can be either straight, or curled, terminating into a thread-like form. If blade's surface has hairs, they arise from minute bumps (tubercle
Tubercle
A tubercle is generally a wart-like projection, but it has slightly different meaning depending on which family of plants or animals it is used to refer to....

s). The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

 is composed of a bunching, or slackly open panicle
Panicle
A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....

 (15–40cm long), with branches that each terminate in a single raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

. The panicle axis is smooth. Panicle branches are angular, or flat, appear to be covered with minute scabs, and are shaggy with long, weak hairs, and have enlarged pulvini
Pulvinus
A pulvinus is a joint-like thickening at the base of a plant leaf or leaflet that facilitates growth-independent movement. It consists of a core of vascular tissue within a flexible, bulky cylinder of thin-walled parenchyma cells...

; they are glabrous or bearded in the axils, and hairy at the tips. The primary branch of the panicle (2–11cm long) lacks branchlets. Racemes bear only a few fertile spikelets (2–10 fertile spikelets per raceme). Main stems (5–6mm long between nodes) are straight, have cilia on their margins, break easily at the nodes, and end in an abrupt, slanting tip.

External links

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