Sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum, stem T S darkfield illumination photomicrograph. stained slide section.
Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea. The thick stalk stores energy as sucrose in the sap. From this juice, sugar is extracted by evaporating the water. Crystallized sugar was reported 5000 years ago in India. Around the eighth century , Arabs introduced sugar to the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. By the tenth century, sources state, there was no village in Mesopotamia that didn't grow sugar cane. It was among the early crops brought to the Americas by Spaniards. Brazil is currently the biggest sugar cane producing country.
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Photo credit: © Scenics & Science / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: botany, bundles, cane, cell, darkfield, illumination, microscope, microtome, officinarum, osmosis, phloem, photomicrograph., photosynthesis, physiology, saccharum, section., slide, stained, stem, sugar, vascular, xylem
