Common Reed

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Common Reed
Common Reed
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Common reed (Latin Phragmites australis) - herbaceous perennial from the Cereal family.

Description

Common reed is a plant endowed with thick, very powerful and rather long underground rhizomes. And sometimes you can see the aboveground rhizomes of this plant. The thickness of the hollow, straight and leafy smooth stems-straws to the top can reach one centimeter. And their height can be up to five meters. All stems are characterized by a bluish-greenish color. In addition to the stems, the creeping shoots are very well developed in the reed.

Dark green or gray-greenish dense linear reed leaves are very narrow, slightly rough at the edges, hard, rather flat, pointed and long. And towards the tips, they also taper slightly. At the very bases of the leaves, you can see small ridges equipped with numerous rows of straight hairs.

Reed stalks end in dense, spreading and rather large drooping panicles, the length of which often reaches half a meter. And on these panicles there are pretty spikelets painted in purple or dark brownish shades. Occasionally there are yellowish spikelets. The length of each spikelet usually does not exceed one centimeter. They are all flattened, linear-lanceolate, and include three to seven flowers each. The upper flowers are bisexual, and the lower ones are male. And the lower spikelet scales are almost two times shorter than the upper ones.

Common reed fruits are oblong caryopses. It is noteworthy that there are up to fifty to one hundred thousand such caryopses in each inflorescence.

The reed blooms in the period from July to September, and the fruits begin to ripen in August-September. At the same time, this culture does not please every season with both flowering and fruiting.

By the way, common reed is considered a malicious weed that actively infests crops of a wide variety of agricultural crops. Especially often it causes certain inconveniences in those areas where cotton and alfalfa with rice are grown.

Usage

Young and not fully developed reed shoots, containing a huge amount of protein and sugar compounds, are eaten raw. And in a number of regions, excellent bread is baked from the ground pre-dried rhizomes of this plant.

They eat reeds and various types of wild animals (elk, deer, nutria, muskrat, etc.) with pleasure. In addition, young shoots are an excellent food for large farm animals. Reed is also used in construction.

Growing and caring

The best temperature for the full development of the reed will be about twenty degrees. However, at ten degrees, it also does not wither.

Since common reed is a fairly moisture-loving crop, it is best to try to grow it in areas with nearby groundwater (approximately at a distance of 2 - 2.5 m). This tall, handsome man will grow magnificently not only in coastal areas, but also in water. He will feel no worse in damp meadows, in swamps, in swampy meadows, as well as on the banks of rivers and lakes. And forest edges with grassy swamps also often become the habitat of this interesting plant.

Common reed propagates either by seeds or vegetatively. By the way, the viability of its seeds is maintained for at least a year. And in order to promote the vegetative reproduction of the reed, it will not hurt to carry out proper inter-row cultivation - in this case, even miniature fragments of its rhizomes will take root easily and quickly.

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