Rhizome stout. Culms solid, 3-5 m high, juicy inside, 2-3 cm in diameter, nodes numerous, the lower internodes shortened and swollen. Sheaths imbricate, lower ones falling off at the culm base; blade 4-6 cm wide, midrib prominent and broad, margins serrulate with siliceous bodies; ligule rounded, small. Panicle very large, up to 50 cm long; racemose branches more or less pendent, rachis-joint. easily falling off together with spikelets when mature. Spikelets paired monomorphic, the one pedicelled and the other sessile, about 3 mm long; callus covered with long silky hairs, the hairs 2-3 times as long as the spikelet; glumes oblong, coriaceous, margins membranous and long, ciliate; lower glume keeled along margins; upper glume boat-shaped, nearly as long as the lower glume; lower lemma oblong-lanceolate, obscurely one-nerved, membranous; upper lemma linear, membranous, about 2/3 as long as the spikelet.
Cultivated in many parts of the tropics.
Cultivated extensively in Taiwan.
The dyed inflorescence is often use as an ornament.
The sugar is contained in the soft central tissues of the stem; the canes are cut before flowering and crushed between rollers to extract the juice; afterwards it is boiled down under reduced pressure to produce crystals.
leaf surface 表面: (fla)flat surface
sclerenchyma 厚壁組織: (boscl)(bostr)on both sides of veins as strand or girder
chlorenchyma 葉綠組織: (radia)cells radiate and lesser than bundle sheath cell in width
bundle sheath 維管束鞘: (dko)two bundle sheaths the outer one with conspicuous chloroplast
buliform cells well developed 泡狀細胞發達: mainly appear in adaxial side
with small vein under buliform cells泡狀細胞下有小脈: (bcarc)bulliform cell with colorless cells form an arc-shape
chlorenchyma cell number between two adjacent veins: 3
chloroplast form in bundle sheath 束鞘細胞內之葉綠體型式: (out)large amount and in centrifugal site
mestome sheath 內束鞘細胞: (Xyms+)metaxylem pole adjacent with mestome sheath
distance between two adjancent vein 脈間距: 129 micrometer
length/weidth ratio of bundle sheath in LS 束鞘細胞縱面長寬比: 2
chlorenchyma cell shape in LS 葉綠細胞縱面形狀: lobed
