Sugar cane. Field of sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum. Sugar cane is a bamboo-like tropical grass grown to make sugar. The cane is chopped up and soaked in water to dissolve the sugar (sucrose) it contains. The solution is then filtered and dried to produce crystals of raw brown sugar, which can be further purified into white sugar. The syrup drained away from the raw sugar is called molasses and can be processed to make golden syrup or treacle, or fermented to make rum. Most of the world's sugar comes from sugar cane, the rest coming from sugar beet grown in temperate countries. Photographed in Hawaii, USA.