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Sugar Cane
Appears in
Published 2014
Saccharum officinarum, the source of most of the world’s sugar, is the descendant of a now extinct wild plant which probably grew in New Guinea. (A reference is made under papua New Guinea to the consumption there of not only sugar cane but also the enclosed inflorescences of S. edule, locally called pitpit.)
The sugar cane is a giant grass looking rather like bamboo; but its stems, instead of being hollow, are filled with a sappy pulp. Nearly 90 per cent of the weight of cane is juice, and this juice contains up to 17 per cent sucrose (common sugar) and small amounts of two other sugars, dextrose and fructose. Sugar-cane juice is pleasantly sweet, although lacking in flavour. It is used as a soft drink in sugar-growing countries, and raw cane is chewed as a sweet.
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