Guda:

Flowering thick-stemmed sugar cane Photograph by: Ton Rul

Use in other system of medicine:

Edibility / Nutritional

- Largely used for preserving meat and fruit.

- In India, sugarcane juice is known as a nutritional drink.

- In Nigeria, stem pulp is widely consumed as a snack for its sugar content.

- Suitable for use as rehydration and functional food plant.

Folkloric

- Refined sugar has been used for fevers, lack of secretion, dry coughs.

- Molasses is used as a laxative.

- Sugar is applied to wounds, ulcers, boils, and inflamed eyes.

- Leaf ash used to treat sore eyes. Stem juice used for sore throats, snake bites, and wounds from poison arrows.

- Pulped sugar used to dress wounds; the cane used for splinting broken bones.

- In Mexico used to relieve coughs.

- Malay women use it in childbirth.

- Decoction of root used for whooping cough.

- In India, plant juices used for abdominal tumors.

- In Cote-d-Ivoire, leaf decoction used for hypertension.

- In India, used in the treatment of jaundice, hemorrhage, dysuria, and various urinary diseases.

- In Sri Lanka, leaf decoction taken for cough. Fresh stem juice with crushed ginger given for stomachaches in children. Treacle used as laxative.

- In Sindh medicine, sugarcane dissolved in water or mixed with milk is applied to affected areas of hand burn. Paste of S. officinarum and Citrus limonum mixed with Cocos nucifera oil is applied to scalp for treatment of dandruff. Paste of S. officinarum and Triticum aestivum applied for wound healing. Paste of sugarcane and jaggery in oil used for wound healing. Paste of sugarcane and butter applied to areas of psoriasis.

- In Ghana, sugarcane is boiled with fruit peels of Anonas comosus and leaves of Azadirachta indica and the decoction drunk three times daily for treatment of malaria.

- in Ogbomoso, SW Nigeria, juice used for treatment of diabetes.

Others

- Wax: Used in the production of furniture, shoes, leather polishes, and waxed paper.

- Alcohol / Fuel: Stem sap used for making alcohol and used as fuel.

- Fiber: Stems are source of fiber for making paper.

- Residue: Bagasse residue after extraction of sugar used for making fiberboard, paper pulp, furfural and cellulose

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