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Purple Small-Reed

Purple Small-Reed

Calamagrostis canescens

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How common: Common

Purple Small-Reed is a tall, broad-leaved perennial grass of wet places. It often forms dense, waist- to chest-high stands along woodland swamps, ditches and shores. Its flower plume is fairly loose and purple-brown, sometimes greenish in shade.

Did you know?

  • It often hybridises with other small-reeds.
  • Its flower plume can look purple-brown in sun but greenish in the shade.

About the species

Identification

Stout grass 80–150 cm tall. Upright hollow stems with solid joints, often branched at the base. Leaves flat, 3–6 mm wide, shorter than the stem, rough to the touch, dull with long hairs above and paler beneath; they narrow from a broader middle to a very long tip. A small white flap (3–5 mm) sits where the leaf meets the stem. Flower head 8–20 cm, a loose narrow cone to egg-shaped plume, purple-brown (greenish in shade) with slightly rough branches. Compared with similar small-reeds, the leaves are relatively broad and the plume is looser, not tight. Flowers in Finland in July–August.

Plant group

Grasses, sedges and rushes

Habitat

mire

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Grows in swampy woods, wet clearcuts, fens, shores and ditches, and along roads and railways. Common in southern and central Finland, rare in western and northern Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Christian Fischer, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CalamagrostisCanescens.jpg

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Sisävedet: rantaniityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.40608

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viitakastikka

See also