Sorghum (genus)

Sorghum or broomcorn is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Sorghum bicolor is grown as a cereals for human consumption and as animal fodder.

Phylogeny
The Sorghum genus is closely related to maize within the PACMAD clade of grasses, and more distantly to the cereals of the BOP clade such as wheat and barley.

Taxonomy
The Sorghum genus is in the grass family, Poaceae, in the subfamily Panicoideae, in the tribe Andropogoneae – the same as maize (Zea mays), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi), and sugarcane (Saccharum spp.). Accepted species recorded include:

• Sorghum amplum – northwestern Australia

• Sorghum angustum – Queensland

• Sorghum arundinaceum – Africa, Indian Subcontinent, Madagascar, islands of the western Indian Ocean

• Sorghum bicolor – cultivated sorghum, also known as durra, jowari, or milo. Native to Sahel region of Africa; naturalized in many places

• Sorghum brachypodum – Northern Territory of Australia

• Sorghum bulbosum – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum burmahicum – Thailand, Myanmar

• Sorghum controversum – India

• Sorghum × drummondii – Sahel and West Africa

• Sorghum ecarinatum – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum exstans – Northern Territory of Australia

• Sorghum grande – Northern Territory, Queensland

• Sorghum halepense – Johnson grass – North Africa, islands of eastern Atlantic, southern Asia from Lebanon to Vietnam; naturalized in East Asia, Australia, the Americas

• Sorghum interjectum – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum intrans – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum laxiflorum – Philippines, Lesser Sunda Islands, Sulawesi, New Guinea, northern Australia

• Sorghum leiocladum – Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria

• Sorghum macrospermum – Northern Territory of Australia

• Sorghum matarankense – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum nitidum – East Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Micronesia

• Sorghum plumosum – Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia

• Sorghum propinquum – China, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Christmas Island, Micronesia, Cook Islands

• Sorghum purpureosericeum – Sahel from Mali to Tanzania; Yemen, Oman, India

• Sorghum stipoideum – Northern Territory, Western Australia

• Sorghum timorense – Lesser Sunda Islands, Maluku, New Guinea, northern Australia

• Sorghum trichocladum – Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras

• Sorghum versicolor – eastern + southern Africa from Ethiopia to Namibia; Oman

• Sorghum virgatum – dry regions from Senegal to the Levant.

Seventeen of the 25 species are native to Australia, with the range of some extending to Africa, Asia, Mesoamerica, and certain islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.