SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM, Unn.' 



[FtcZe Plate XIV.] 



English, sugar-cane ; Vernaculae, ikh, ikhari (in Western Districts), ukh, ukhari (in Eastern 

 Districts), nai shakar (Persian). 



Natural order Gmminece, tribe Andropogoneoi. A large perennial grass. Stems many, 6-12 

 ft. high, thick, solid, jointed, polished, yellow purple or striped ; lower internodes short with fibrous 

 roots above each joint. Leaves very large, crowded, lower ones soon falling off ; ligule short, entire ; 

 sheaths about one foot in length, striate, smooth or with mealy pubescence ; blade 3-4 ft. long and 

 from 1^ to 2 inches in breadth, acute, smooth on both surfaces, margins minutely serrulate, ciliate 

 at the base ; midrib prominent beneath. Panicles large, compound, drooping, feathery, of a 

 greyish colour. Spikelets small, very numerous, l-floweredf, arranged in pairs on alternate sides of 

 the long slender panicle branches, one stalked and the other sessile, each enveloped in an involucre 

 of long white silky hairs ; glumes 2, nearly equal, lower 2-nerved and ciliate towards the apex, 

 upper 1-nerved ; outer pale wanting, inner shorter than the glumes. Lodicules 2, free, truncate, 

 lobed. Stamens 3 ; anthers linear, oblong. Ovary smooth ; stigmas 2, densely plumose, purple. 

 Fruit not knoAvn. 



The varieties of sugar-cane are very numerous, and as their names vary greatly in 

 different Districts, it is a matter of some difficulty to identify them. A broad sub- 

 division may be made into edible and non-edible cane, the former being grown for 

 human food in the raw state and eaten as a sweatmeat, while the latter is intended 

 for the production of sugar. Edible cane is, as a rule, much the thicker, softer, and 

 juicier of the two, and is grown with very high cultivation. Its principal variety is 

 the one known as paunda, which is supposed to be a recent introduction from the 

 Mauritius. In the Dehra Dun T)i'&ir:\ci paunda is used for sugar making, but elsewhere 

 it is grown merely as a sweetmeat. The most distinct varieties of non-edible cane are 

 (1), a tall soft cane growing as high as 10 feet, requiring good cultivation and yielding 

 a large proportion of juice {dikchan in Rohilkhand, barolcha in Cawnpore) ; (2), a shorter 

 and rather harder cane not often more than 5 or 6 feet high, yielding less but richer 

 juice than the above {agkoli, matna') ; (3), a hard tall reddish cane of poor quality much 

 grown in damp localities without irrigation {citin) ; (4), a dwarf white hard cane yield- 

 ing more juice than chin, but resembling it in being grown on second-rate land {dlior). 

 The two first varieties are delicate and require a rich well manured and well iirigated 

 soil, the two latter yield a crop with much less care and expenditure, and suffer much 

 less from flooding in the rainy season. 



The total area under cane in the whole of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh, may 



* Eeferences :— Roxb. ri. Ind. i, 237 ; Kunth Enum. PI. V. 381 ; Bcntley and Trimen Med. PI. 298 ; Drury Use- 

 ful PI. of India 371. 



t Many authors describe the spiiielets as 2-flo\vcrcd. Koxburgh (I.e.) says " Flowers hermaphrodite, in pnlrs ; one 

 sessile, the other 2>edicelled." The question may depend therefore as to whether the pair of l-flowercd spikelets is looked upon 

 as a 2-nowcrcd spikclet, or composed of two 1-flowered spikelets. 



