reed

reed name used for several plants of the family Graminae ( grass family). The common American reed, also called reedgrass and canegrass, is a tall perennial grass ( Phragmites australis ), widely distributed in fresh or brackish wet places. It has stout, creeping rootstalks and a large plumelike panicle. In the SW United States this grass is called carrizo and is used in building adobe huts; it has also been used for thatching and cordage. Native Americans collected a sweet exudate from the plant and made arrows of the stalks. The leaves served as edible greens and the seeds as a cereal food. Due in part to the degradation of salt marshes and in part to the supplanting of the native P. australis by a Eurasian variety, the reed has become invasive in American wetlands, where it often forms a monoculture. The giant reed ( Arundo donax ), of similar appearance, is native to the Mediterranean region but is now widely naturalized throughout tropical and warm climates, including the S United States. It is often cultivated for ornament, and in Europe the stems have been used to make reed instruments, bagpipes, and reed organs. This is the reed from which Pan was fabled to have made his panpipe, or syrinx. The "reeds" of wickerwork are often rattan . Reeds are classified in the division Magnoliophyta , class Liliopsida, order Cyperales, family Gramineae.

reed. Small, convex moulding, smaller than an ovolo or bead, usually found with several others parallel to it, called reeding.

reed. Sound-producing agent (of thin cane, plastic, or metal) of various mouth-blown wind instr., such as ob. and harmonica, certain org. pipes, etc. A reed which vibrates against an air slot is a beating reed; one which vibrates through such a slot (i.e. from one side to the other) is a free reed. Reeds may be either single, as in cl. family, or double (in the latter the two halves of the mouthpiece itself being pieces of reed vibrating against each other, see oboe). On an org., the reed stop controls pipes which have reeds.