Stems to 5 m or so and up to about 5 cm wide, sweetly juicy a with a 'root ring' above each node. Lower internodes short and swollen. Leaves with blades to over 5 cm wide having rough edges. Ligule membranous, triangular, 4-5 mm long. Inflorescences plume-like, to over 60 cm long. Spikelets 3-4 mm long with a basal ring of silky hair. Flowering uncommon outside the tropics.
Tropical SE Asia
Occasionally naturalised in northern New South Wales and Queensland near plantations and along stream banks.
Household sugar is extracted from two major sources: Beta vulgaris var. altissima, Sugar Beet, a turnip-like plant from cool temperate climates, and sugarcane from the tropics. Sugarcane is the source of half the world's sugar. S. officinarum is a cultigen, being a hybrid complex first domesticated in New Guinea and adjacent islands and probably including a species of Miscanthus, but further hybrids have been developed in Hawaii, the West Indies and elsewhere. From Indo-china through the East Indies to Polynesia clonally reproduced cultivars of sugarcane have been grown since prehistoric times as plants used for chewing. These are referred to as 'noble' canes to distinguish them from the commercial cultivars which were produced in the early twentieth century, first by the Dutch in Java but later in Barbados, Florida, Hawaii, Queensland, India and elsewhere. New commercial cultivars are in constant production.
In Australia sugar was first grown in plantations at Port Macquarie in 1821. By 1868 there were 9 mills in NSW producing 60 tons of sugar. In Queensland, Maryborough was the first production centre but attention soon shifted to Mackay which, by 1874, had 16 mills; it became the 'sugaropolis' of Queensland which it has remained to the current day. Plantations and estates gave way to large central mills co-operatively owned by small farmers. Successful mechanical harvesting began in about 1960. In 1995 the Queensland crop was 35.27 tonnes yielding 4.61 million tonnes of sugar (see McKillop, 2001).
Source: (2005). Poaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 5. Flowering plants. Monocotyledons. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
