DURRA, DOURA, DURRA MILLET, INDIAN MILLET, or SORGTIO GRASS, Sorghum, genus of grasses, distinguished from which many botanists prefer to include it—only by the ovate or oblongo-ovate hermaphrodite spikelets, with glumes that have three small teeth at the extremity. The species are generally annual, tall, broad leaved grasses, having strong culms filled with a juicy and saccharine pith, and large pani cles. Several of them are cultivated as corn-plants chiefly in Asia and Africa, particularly the common D. (S. oul gars, or andropogon sorghum, itolcus sorghum of the older botanists). also called joar and jograree in India. It grows 4 to 8 ft. high, with thickly crowded panicles. It is a coarse, strong grass; its grain is round, a little larger than mustard seed. It is a native of the East Indies, IS extensively in Asia, and may perhaps be described as the principal corn-plant of Africa. It is also cultivated to a considerable extent in the s. of Europe. It is sometimes cultivated in Germany, but the summer is not sufficiently long and warm to secure its greatest perfection. The climate of Britain is still less suitable. D. yields a very abundant produce, in this respect even rivaling maize, but the meal does not make good bread; it is excellent, however, instead of rice for puddings, and is prepared in various ways for food. The culms and leaves, although coarse, are excellent food for horses and cattle, as is also the grain.—The seeds of the SHALOO or SUGAR-GRASS (S. saccharaturn) are more pleasant to the taste than those of the common durra. It is cultivated in the warm parts of Asia and in Africa, and has a dif fuse and very spreading panicle. The sweet pith of the calm is eaten, and is also of value as a source of sugar. This plant has been cultivated to some extent in the Veronese.
and its cultivation has been recently introduced into North America—where it is called CHINESE Sucmt-CasE—in order to the production of sugar. It seems likely to form an important new feature in American agriculture, succeeding well at least as far u. as Maine, and yielding sugar in large quantity. In Britain, it succeeds only in the warmest parts. As a forage plant, it is very nutritious when young.—KAFFER Cons (S. Caffroruni) has a very diffuse umbel-like panicle, with branches bending down all around. The culin is more than the height of a man, and has a sweet pith. This species is largely cul tivated in s. Africa, both by Kaffers and by the colonists. By the latter, the grain is chiefly used for feeding holepeme is a troublesome weed in the fields of the n. of Italy, like couch-grass. The sweet runners of the roots are kept by the apothe caries of that country as a substitute for sarsaparilla, under the name of gctrmignons, or ionilaee dolee.
DoRRENBERG, a small t. of Prussian Saxony, 5 m. s.e. of Merseburg, deserves men tion only for its salt springs, which produce about 250,000 bushels of salt annually. Pop. '71, 202.
DtRRENSTEIN, a village of lower Austria, is situated in a highly picturesque locality, on the left bank of the Danube, about 45 m. w.n.w. of Vienna. It is chiefly notable for the ruins of a castle, which stand upon a ridge of bare rock overlooking the town. A peculiar interest attaches to this grand but desolate and shattered fortress, from its hav ing been the prison in which Richard Cceur-de-Liou was confined by Leopold of Austria, for 15 months. Pop. 650.