Botany
A large, coarse and erect grass, attaining a height of 1.5 to 4 meters, 2-5 cm thick, with long and short internodes. Stems are solid, polished, green, yellow or purplish. Leaves are large and broad, with blades 0.9 to 1.25 meters long and 4-5 cm wide. Panicles are very large, white, drooping and terminal, 40 to 80 cm long, branches up to 35 cm long. Spikelets are numerous, 1-flowered, about 3 mm long, with surrounding white villous hairs about twice as long as the spikelets.

Distribution
A major crop, cultivated throughout the Philippines.

Chemical constituents and properties
Sucrose is the product of the sugar cane juice.
Considered antidote, antiseptic, antivinous, bacterical, cardiotonic, demulcent, diuretic, emollient, , cooling, laxative, stimulant.

Parts used and preparation
Roots, sugar.

Uses
Nutritional
Nutritious. Use for preserving meat and fruit.
Folkloric
Refined sugar has been used for fevers, lack of secretion, dry coughs.
Molasses is used as a laxative.
Sugar is applied to wounds, ulcers, boils, and inflammed eyes.
Pulped sugar used to dress wounds; the cane used for splinting broken bones.
In Mexico used to relieve coughs.
Malay women use it in childbirth.
Decoction of root used for whooping cough.
In India, plant juices used for abdominal tumors.
In Cote-d'-Ivoire, leaf decoction used for hypertension.

Studies
• Immunostimulating Effect: The phagocytic activity of peripheral blood leucocytes in chickens increased significantly when orally administered sugar cane extracts, with higher antibody responses and delayed type hypersensitivity responses.
• Prokinetic Effect: S officinarum was one of seven known herbs in a polyherbal formulation. Study showed increased gastric emptying and suggests a potential for use as a gastrointestinal prokinetic to improve gastrointestinal motility.
• Hypoglycemic Effect: Study reports the hypoglycemic effect of juice from sugar cane stalks. The isolated constituent, saccharin, provided a transient reduction of blood glucose. The transient hypoglycemic effect of complex polysaccharides is suggested to be possibly from increased glucose utilization in the liver and peripheral tissues.
• Phytochemicals / Antioxidant: Study of sugarcane leaves yielded luteolin-8-C (rhamnosylglucoside), with radical scavenging activity. The juice yielded falvones diosmetin-8-C-glucoside, vitrexin, schaftoside, isoschaftoside and 4',5'-dimethyl-luteolin-8-C glucoside. Its content of flavonoids suggest a potential for sugarcane as a dietary source of natural antioxidants.
• Steroidogenesis / Testosterone Effect: Study investigated the effect of sugar cane (S. officinarum) molasses on steroidogenesis in testis cell culture. Results showed low concentrations of molasses increase testosterone secretion. Study suggests molasses may be a potential diet supplement to increase testosterone levels.

Toxicity concers !
Sugarcane contains hydrocyanic. Sugar cane is a known teratogen. Molasses in excess amounts, alone or mixed with feeds, may cause diarrhea, colic, urticaria, kidney irritation, sweating and paralysis in domestic stock; horses seem more susceptible, and toxicity could prove fatal.

Availability
Cultivated.