What is the difference between sugar cane and cane sugar?

I've heard people use them interchangeably.
Just so I don't go crazy, what is the difference?

Solution 1:

Cane sugar comes from sugarcane. Sugarcane is the crop, cane sugar is the refined grains of sugar.

Edit: you also get other things from sugarcane, such as falernum, molasses, rum, cachaça, bagasse and ethanol.

There are photos of the crop are on Wikipedia.

Solution 2:

When you have two nouns together, usually the second is the basic meaning, and the first one acts like an adjective to modify it. An apple tree is a kind of tree. A tree house is a kind of house.

So sugar cane is a kind of cane. (It’s a cane from which sugar is produced.) Cane sugar is a kind of sugar. (It’s sugar that’s produced from cane.)

Solution 3:

Cane sugar is a type of sugar, sugar cane is a type of cane. The difference is which is the noun and which is the adjective.

Cane sugar is a type of sugar derived from a particular cane plant.

Sugar cane is a type of cane plant that can be used to make sugar.

For our next question we want to know, which came first, the chicken or the egg?