234 Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 



common grass in cities in yards and lawns. It forms a flat carpet- 

 like sward and, when in blossom, is an attractive grass. 



95. COMMON REED-GRASS 



PHRAGMITES PHRAGMITES (L.) Karst. 



The most handsome and stately of our grasses, not common in 

 the immediate vicinity of the lake. There was a small patch in 

 the springy flat by Norris Inlet, and a few plants scattered along 

 the thoroughfare. Large patches were found in the tamaracks 

 west of the lake. 



This was once a common plant through parts of the state, form- 

 ing dense patches on the flat marshes. It is now rapidly disap- 

 pearing before the draining of the country. 



Among all our plants, the reed holds peculiarly a place of its 

 own. It is a plant of small economic importance, and one with 

 which the commercial world has little to do. It has at times been 

 made into a sort of rough wattle to protect plants from frost, and 

 sometimes the plume-like heads are collected and dyed, as pampas 

 grass is dyed, for ornament, but beyond this it has no relation to 

 the world of trade. It is somewhat surprising in this day when 

 wild gardens, especially water gardens, and parks with ponds are 

 in vogue, that it has not come into favor. Perhaps because it re- 

 quires a large area to show up at its best. It does not fit in well 

 with trees or shrubbery but needs as a setting square miles of level 

 prairie and arching sky, where it can loom and lord it above the 

 humbler sedges and grasses. And yet a little patch even in 

 cramped quarters and among shrubs and trees is not at all bad. If 

 one wants wildness, here it is with a vengeance — the most like a 

 jungle of anything that can be devised in a region such as this. 



The Reed is a plant of wide distribution, being found not alone 

 in this country but in Europe and Asia as well. It may not have 

 been the identical plant which figured in Greek mythology, although 

 it may well have been, and no feature of landscape could be more 

 easily peopled with creatures of the imagination than a clump of 

 reeds. 



Taking the word reed in a broad sense, and including several 

 species of grass bearing a general similarity to our own, it is re- 

 markable what a large place in the world of literature and art is 

 occupies by a plant used to no great extent for the prime needs 

 of man — food or shelter. This arises from the fact that the reed, 

 through its use in primitive wind instruments, became the type of 

 all ?eolian music, the fife and flute, and the symbol of joy and the 

 dance. 



