It is a perennial, tall and erect grass upto 6 to 8 m in height. Culms are more or less cylindrical, solid and jointed with distinct nodes and internodes. Leaves are alternate, distichous and lamina linear and long with a distinct midrib. Panicle is silky and spikelets are deciduous. The fruit is a caryopsis.

Its roots are considered as cooling, demulcent and diuretic and the stems sweet, laxative, diuretic cooling and aphrodisiac.

Saccharum officinarum

Ascorbic acid, riboflavin, niacin.

The juice is drunk in jaundice and as a remedy for low blood pressure. This is also drunk or its gur with a little of dry ginger rubbed into it and taken to relieve hiccup. Besides it is administered for fistula.

Twenty to fifty percent of unrefined sugar added to oat produces skin swelling, weakness in the hind quarters, paralysis of the urinary bladder, weakness of the heart, and sometimes, death (Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, 1962).

Sharma PV.Classical Uses of Medicinal Plants.