What is the difference between reed and grass? Teach you a quick way to tell them apart

When reed is mentioned, everyone is surely familiar with it. Its stems can be used to make mats and brooms, and reed flowers can be used as quilt and pillow filling to provide warmth; they can also be used in flower arrangements and have high ornamental value. So what is the difference between reed and grass?

1. What is the difference between reed and grass?

Difference 1: Different appearance

Reed grows 1-3 m tall, with more than 20 nodes. The lower leaf sheaths are shorter than the upper ones and longer than the internodes. The edge of the ligule is densely covered with a ring of short cilia about 1 mm long that fall off easily. The leaf blades are lanceolate-linear, hairless, and taper gradually at the tip into a thread-like form. Grass culms are upright, hollow, and 2-10 mm in diameter. The leaf sheaths are hairless or covered with fine hairs; the ligule is short and densely covered with short hairs; the leaf blades are flat, smooth, or rough along the edges.

Difference 2: Different places of origin and habitats

Reed is a widely distributed polymorphic species worldwide. It grows along rivers, lakes, ponds, ditches, and low wetlands. Except in forest habitats, it does not grow there; in all kinds of open areas with water sources, its rapid spreading reproductive ability often forms continuous reed communities. Reed grass grows in ponds, riverside wetlands, sandy land, swampy meadows, and saline-alkali flats. In particular, the yield is extremely high in various areas of Inner Mongolia. Its places of origin are found throughout the country and on all continents of the world.

2. What uses does reed have?

1. The economic value of reed

Reed stems have a relatively high cellulose content and can be used to make paper and artificial fibers. In ancient times, reed was woven into “reed mats” for use in heating brick beds and building houses. In addition, in ancient times there was a musical instrument called the reed flute, made from the hollow stems of reed. Reed panicles can be made into brooms, and the catkins of reed flowers can be used to fill pillows. There are many kinds of uses.

2. The landscape value of reed

Reed is often planted by the water and is especially beautiful in the flowering season. New reed varieties on the market now have the characteristics of tolerance to deep water and cold, drought resistance, high-temperature resistance, and lodging resistance, and have the advantages of short-term establishment and rapid landscaping. Reed has strong vitality and wide environmental adaptability, and is the first choice for water-surface greening, water purification, swamp wetlands, soil protection and embankment stabilization, and soil improvement.

3. The livestock value of reed

Reed has high biomass. Reed leaves, reed flowers, reed stems, reed roots, and reed shoots can all be used in animal husbandry and have relatively high feeding value. Livestock like to eat the tender stems and leaves of reed. Reed land can be used as mowing land or for both grazing and mowing, and is suitable for grazing horses and large cattle. Besides grazing use, it can also be sun-dried into hay and ensiled. After ensiling, the forage has a strong aroma.

4. The medicinal value of reed

The rhizome of reed is called reed root. It is cold in nature and sweet in taste, and can be used to clear stomach fire and remove lung heat. It has the effects of strengthening the stomach, stopping vomiting, and promoting urination. Compendium of Materia Medica records that reed leaves have the effect of “treating cholera, vomiting and counterflow, and carbuncles”; reed flowers have the effects of stopping bleeding and removing toxins, and treating metrorrhagia and vomiting and diarrhea.

5. The ecological value of reed

Reed has the effect of protecting soil and stabilizing embankments, and can prevent soil erosion. Large areas of reed can not only regulate the climate, but also conserve water sources. The good wetland ecological environment formed provides habitat for birds. The leaves, stems, and rhizomes of reed all have aeration tissue and have the effect of purifying sewage.