Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum), a tropical perennial grass native to Papua New Guinea and Southeast Asia, is one of the world’s most important economic food and energy crops. Its soaring ...

“A lot of places used loulu palms and pili grass, but this particular place (sugar cane leaves) were the thatching materials from day one. The kupuna told me to keep this going, to never change it.

During the 9th and 10th centuries, sugar cane was grown extensively in southern Europe and soon spread to Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean and Zanzibar in East Africa. The botanical was first ...