What plant is sugarcane? A comprehensive introduction to sugarcane

Sugarcane is a plant of the genus Saccharum in the grass family, with thick and well-developed rhizomes, grown in temperate and tropical zones, and is the raw material for making sucrose. Its skin is generally one of two common colors, purple and green, and can also be red or brown, though these are relatively rare. If divided by use, it is mainly classified into fruit sugarcane and sugar sugarcane:

1. Fruit sugarcane

Fruit sugarcane is an edible fruit sugarcane, a type of sugarcane for fresh eating. Its characteristics are abundant juice, clear sweetness, and a crisp, tender, refreshing taste. China's fruit sugarcane is mainly divided by skin color into yellow-skin fruit sugarcane and black-skin fruit sugarcane, with production areas mainly in Guangdong, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and other provinces.

Among them, black-skin fruit sugarcane is a perennial plant, and its harvest can reach as many as 7-8 times; in China it is generally 3 times, that is, after three years the old roots are dug out and it is replanted. Yellow-skin fruit sugarcane has the advantages of thin skin, plump juice, clear sweetness, a floral fragrance, and good taste. It is one of the winter fruits deeply loved by people; its flavor is sweet and its nature is cool, it has a heat-clearing effect, and can relieve lung heat and stomach and intestinal heat, for people with lung-heat cough and abundant phlegm that is yellow, thick, and turbid.

2. Sugar sugarcane

Sugar sugarcane is a type of sugarcane whose bagasse can be processed into fiber for spinning and weaving cloth, and can be made into sugarcane board and paper, and can also be refined into alcohol, furfural, plastics, etc. Common varieties include the Taiwan Sugar 20, 22, 24, and 26 series, and early-maturing high-sugar No. 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 11.

The general population can consume sugarcane, but note that people with spleen-stomach deficiency cold or cold pain in the stomach and abdomen had best not eat it.