Sugar Cane

Sugar Cane (formerly reed, bamboo or papyrus) were added in the v1.0.11 patch. They can be found randomly on grass or dirt tiles that are near water and can be up to three blocks tall (There is a glitch that can let them be four blocks tall), more sugar canes (or other blocks) can be placed on top of it. There appears to be no pattern to the spawn algorithm. sugar canes may occasionally grow in tundra Biomes, but are extremely hard to find because Ice replaces all water next to land.

Like Cacti, removing the bottom part causes all parts above it to be removed as well, allowing for quick harvesting; one can also "shave" off the upper sections and leave the bottom section planted. It can be crafted into paper.

Farming sugar canes is similar to farming crops. Like the real plant, sugar canes must be planted on a grass/dirt block immediately adjacent to water, unlike crops which can be within four blocks of water. Diagonal blocks, as well as blocks above or below the water stream, won't allow it to be placed. If it can be placed on a tile, it will grow there. Unlike wheat, it does not require a tilled field to grow. Planted sugar canes grow quickly to a height of three blocks, however, extra sugar cane blocks can be permanently added if heights over 3 are desired. This has not been confirmed yet, but they are thought to grow faster when the player is within a certain vicinity of them.

You can plant sugar canes on a tile covered in snow even if there is no water adjacent to it.

You can walk through sugar canes, but water will not pass through it. This makes it a convenient material for water gates.

If the water source is removed, when the sugar canes next grow, the game will realize it has no adjacent water, and the sugar canes will disintegrate, leaving two sugar cane items instead of one. This is not as efficient as growing sugar canes normally, because you must replace the water supply to re-plant the sugar canes.

sugar canes are completely fireproof. They can block lava flows, and when lava hits them from above, it is spread out as by a normal block. Neither they nor the block they stand on can be lit on fire with the Flint and Steel, although attempting this still lowers the durability of the Flint and Steel, in a manner similar to glass.

The water/lava blocking ability of sugar canes includes being placed in the middle of an existing flow (they still need to be adjacent to water).

sugar canes are often used for decorating because they are easy to grow and give the place a more modern look.

sugar canes will block projectiles as any ordinary block, which means projectiles shot at anything inside or past the sugar canes will be blocked. However, if you stand in a patch of sugar canes and fire arrows/throw snowballs, those projectiles will ignore the sugar canes where your head is located. A Ghast's fireball has yet to be tested though.

When planted underwater, sugar canes function similar to Sponge, creating an air pocket. However, it will be only 1x1x1 instead of 5x5x5. Also, if a sugar cane block is placed next to or on top of another sugar cane block, they will both be instantly destroyed if underwater, this will still drop the two sugar cane blocks that were destroyed as resources.

On January 10th 2011, notch tweeted that reeds are retconned into sugar cane, and will be used in making cake.

Schilf