Distribution and habitat: Found throughout India.

Botany: Perennial tall herb up to 6.5 m height with stems of varying thickness and colour, many lobed.

• Leaves:  1.5 m long, 60 cm broad, linear lanceolate, midrib stout, erect or drooping, varying in colour from light to dark green.
• Flowers:Inflorescence large, pyramidal, spike lets usually surrounded by long silky hair from their base, glumes two, glabrous in the back, lemmas not cuspidate. Racemes upto 10 cm long, fragile, pedicels short. Involucral glumes sub equal, lanceolate, the lower acute, glabrous, the upper very similar, glabrous or ciliolate. Lower floral glume oblong, acute or subacute, nerveless, about 3 mm long, upper floral glume subacute and ciliate. Stigmas purplish, 2.1 mm long.
• Grains : oblong to subglobose, subterete, flesh coloured.

Properties: 

• Flowers- 5-O-methylapigenin and 3’,4’,5,7- tetrahydroxy-3-6-dimethoxyflavone
• Sugar cane-  Saccharetin
• Cane juice-  Glucans-saccharans A,B,C,D,E& F, vitamin D, aminoacids

Uses: 

• The roots are cooling and diuretic.
• The stem is sweet, cooling, emollient, laxative, cardiotonic, diuretic, galactagogue, aphrodisiac, expectorant, haemostatic and tonic.
• Dipsia, fatigue, gastric disorders, ulcers of the skin and mucous membrane, seminal weakness, delirium and urinary disorders. 

Propagation: Vegetatively by planting section of immature cane known as seed sett.

Harvesting: Harvest when it is fully mature. Delayed harvesting will reduce yield and recovery percentage.