SUGAR CANE --Saccharum officinarum--

Classic sweet sugarcane - 70% of the world's refined sugar comes from this plant and its hybrids! Really cool huge grass - up to 10x10 feet! Long, gray-green leaves with dramatic pale purple-pink pampas-like plumes 2-3 feet taller in fall. Sun to part shade. Used in India for its fibers and stems, and medicinally. Youngest leaves can be eaten as a vegetable. First domesticated in New Guinea, grown for sugar and ethanol. Sugar can be extracted, and the stems can also be chewed as a sweet snack. For hard freezes be sure to mulch well to protect next year's stalk buds and ensure the plant will come back from the root. Attracts pollinators, and larval host plant that supports various skipper larvae and Common Wood-Nymph, though plants are mostly self-pollinated by falling grains or by wind.