2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Common reed has another name - southern reed. In Russia, it can be seen absolutely everywhere, except perhaps with the exception of the Far North. Also, this plant is found in Asia, South and North America, North Africa and Western Europe. Its main habitats are overgrown lakes, sands with closely spaced groundwater, the shores of lakes and rivers, swamps, flooded meadows and floodplains. And in the lower reaches of rivers, reeds often form luxurious thickets
Getting to know the plant
Common reed is a rather tall herbaceous perennial with very thick and powerful, long underground rhizomes (sometimes aboveground ones can also be seen). Hollow straight stems-straws reach one centimeter in thickness. Leafy and smooth to the top, they have a pleasant bluish-greenish color. Moreover, in addition to the stems, the creeping shoots are well developed in the reed. It is noteworthy that sometimes the stems of this plant can reach a height of as much as five meters.
Dark green or gray-greenish dense linear leaves of the reed are narrow, slightly rough at the edges, hard, flat, pointed and long. Closer to the tips, they taper a little more. And at the bases of the leaves, you can see small rollers equipped with rows of straight hairs.
Such peculiar reed stalks end in dense, spreading and rather large drooping panicles. The length of such panicles often reaches half a meter. On panicles, spikelets of a purple or dark brownish hue are located. Sometimes they are yellowish. All spikelets up to one centimeter long, flattened, linear-lanceolate, containing from three to seven flowers each. In this case, the upper flowers are bisexual, and the lower ones are male. The lower spikelet scales are also almost half as long as the upper ones. Reed fruits are oblong caryopses, of which there can be up to 50 - 100 thousand in one inflorescence.
Common reed blooms, as a rule, from July to September, and fruit ripening is observed in August-September. By the way, reed pleases not every year with both flowering and fruiting.
Common reed is a malicious weed that often infests crops of all kinds of agricultural crops. It is most often inconvenient in areas where cotton, alfalfa and rice grow.
Reed use
The very young shoots of this plant, which have not yet developed, are eaten raw and contain many protein and sugar substances. And in some regions, bread is baked from ground, pre-dried rhizomes of cane.
This plant and various types of wild animals willingly eat, among which one can note moose, deer, nutria, muskrats and some others. Young shoots are also used as feed for large farm animals.
People have long and successfully used reed in construction - fences and roofs were made from it, and it was also a good filler and an excellent thermal insulation material.
Mats, various wicker products, some types of paper - this is not a complete list of what can be made from this beautiful plant.
How to grow
For the full development of reeds, the most optimal temperature will be around twenty degrees, although at ten degrees it will also grow.
Common reed is very hygrophilous, therefore, the most preferable for its cultivation will be areas with nearby groundwater (at a distance of about 2 - 2, 5 m). This tall handsome man grows well in coastal areas and even in the water. In damp meadows, marshes, marshy meadows, river and lake banks, it also feels great. Forest edges with grassy swamps are no exception.
Common reed propagation occurs either by seeds or vegetatively. The viability of the seeds of this moisture-loving plant lasts for quite a long time - for a whole year. And its vegetative reproduction is facilitated by inter-row cultivation. Even tiny fragments of common reed rhizomes take root very quickly and easily, giving life to new plants.
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