Reed is a common name for several tall, grass-like plants of wetlands.

Varieties

They are all members of the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

Poales (in the modern, expanded circumscription), and include:

In the grass family,
Poaceae Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns ...

* Common reed ('' Phragmites australis''), the original species named reed * Giant reed ('' Arundo donax''), used for making reeds for musical instruments * Burma reed ('' Neyraudia reynaudiana'') * Reed canary-grass ('' Phalaris arundinacea'') * Reed sweet-grass ('' Glyceria maxima'') * Small-reed ('' Calamagrostis'' species)

In the sedge family,
Cyperaceae The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus '' Carex'' ...

* Paper reed or papyrus ('' Cyperus papyrus''), the source of the Ancient Egyptian writing material, also used for making boats

In the family Typhaceae

* Bur-reed ('' Sparganium'' species) * Reed-mace (''

Typha ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...

'' species), also called bulrush or cattail

In the family Restionaceae

* Cape thatching reed (''

Elegia tectorum ''Elegia tectorum'', previously ''Chondropetalum tectorum'' or ''Restio tectorum'', more commonly Cape thatching reed, or dakriet (in Afrikaans), is a member of the restio family, Restionaceae. It is a tufted perennial growing to between 1.5 and ...

''), a restio originating from the South-western Cape, South Africa. * Thatching reed ('' Thamnochortus insignis''), another restio species originating from the same geographic region.

Use in construction

Reed house under construction, Iraq marshes 1978 - panoramio

Many different cultures have used reeds in construction of buildings of various types for at least thousands of years. One contemporary example is the

Marsh Arabs The Marsh Arabs ( ar, عرب الأهوار ''ʻArab al-Ahwār'' "Arabs of the Marshlands"), also referred to as the Maʻdān ( ar, معدان "dweller in the plains") or Shroog (Iraqi ar, شروق, "those from the east")—the latter two often ...

Thatching

'' Phragmites australis'', the common reed, is used in many areas for

thatching Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

roofs. In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, common reed used for this purpose is known as "Norfolk reed" or "water reed". However, "wheat reed" and "Devon reed" are not reeds but long-stemmed wheat straw.

Use in music

Ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

used '' Arundo donax'' to make flutes known as kalamaulos; this is a compound word, from kalamos (cane) + aulos (flute). At the time, the best cane for flutes came from the banks of river Kephissos, in Attica, Greece. Several kalamaulos tuned differently and tied together, made a syrinx or Panpipes. ''A. donax'' is still the principal source material of reed makers for clarinets, saxophones, oboes, bassoons, bagpipes, and other woodwind instruments. The Var country in southern France contains the best-known supply of instrument reeds.

Other uses

Bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

and, even more commonly, rattan stems are used as "reed sticks" to wick and disperse the scent of

essential oil An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing Volatility (chemistry), volatile (easily evaporated at normal temperatures) chemical compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, aetherol ...

s in aroma diffusers. (See .)

References

External links

{{Plant common name Poales