Sugar Cane

Sugar-Cane (Saccharum officinarum), an arborescent, grass, probably a native of India, cultivated from time immemorial in China, and probably introduced into Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus by the Saracens, into Spain by the Moors, and into the Canaries, Madeira, Brazil, and the West Indies by the Spaniards and Portuguese. It is now generally grown within 40° on either side of the equator. It has a solid stem of numerous short internodes; flowers in a loose panicle, enveloped in long, woolly hairs and with woolly, vio1et stigmas.