Sugar cane on gravel?

Edit: Ignore bottom post.
But I did find sugarcane on gravel which is still odd. It was on the gravel block while I was flying around in creative.

I made a new world in the beta version of Minecraft and I flew around for a bit and found sugar cane planted on a grass block. The grass block was near water and I was able to place sugarcane right onto the grass block. I tired this with grass blocks that were not near the water and it didn't work.