The sorghum has not been found among the remains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland and Italy. The Greeks never spoke of it. Pliny’s phrase[1934] about a _milium_ introduced into Italy from India in his time has been supposed to refer to the sorghum; but it was a taller plant, perhaps _Holcus saccharatus_. The sorghum has not been found in a natural state in the tombs of ancient Egypt. Dr. Hannerd thought he recognized it in some crushed seeds brought by Rosellini from Thebes;[1935] but Mr. Birch, the keeper of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, has more recently declared that the species has not been found in the ancient tombs.[1936] Pickering says he recognized its leaves mixed with those of the papyrus. He says he also saw paintings of it; and Leipsius has copies of drawings which he, as well as Unger and Wilkinson, takes to be the _dourra_ of modern cultivation.[1937] The height and the form of the ear are undoubtedly those of the sorghum. It is possible that this species is the _dochan_, once mentioned in the Old Testament[1938] as a cereal from which bread was made; yet the modern Arabic word _dokhn_ refers to the sweet sorghum. Common names tell us nothing, either from their lack of meaning, or because in many cases the same name has been applied to the different kinds of panicum and sorghum. I can find none which is certain in the ancient languages of India or Western Asia, which argues an introduction of but few centuries before the Christian era. No botanist mentions the _dourra_ as wild in Egypt or in Arabia. An analogous form is wild in equatorial Africa, but R. Brown has not been able to identify it,[1939] and the flora of tropical Africa in course of publication at Kew has not yet reached the order Graminæ. There remains, therefore, the single assertion of Dr. Bretschneider, that the tall sorghum is indigenous in China. If it is really the species in question, it spread westward very late. But it was known to the ancient Egyptians, and how could they have received it from China while it remained unknown to the intermediate peoples? It is easier to understand that it is indigenous in tropical Africa, and was introduced into Egypt in prehistoric time, afterwards into India, and finally into China, where its cultivation does not seem to be very ancient, for the first work which mentions it belongs to the fourth century of our era. In support of the theory of African origin, I may quote the observation of Schmidt,[1940] that the species abounds in the island of San Antonio, in the Cape Verde group, in rocky places. He believes it to be “completely naturalized,” which perhaps conceals a true origin. +Sweet Sorghum+—_Holcus saccharatus_, Linnæus; _Andropogon saccharatus_, Roxburgh; _Sorghum saccharatum_, Persoon.