Eurasian Common Reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud.)
Most authorities, for reasons unclear to us, consider this to be a single species with two subspecies occurring in North America, ssp. americanus, which is native, and ssp. australis, which is introduced from Europe. However, these two populations, in spite of having overlapping bloom times and occurring together on some of the same sites, only rarely hybridize in nature, less frequently than numerous other taxa which are treated as separate species. On this basis, and in agreement with Weakley's FSUS, we treat these as separate species. This taxon thus only refers to what some authorities refer to as Phragmites australis ssp. australis; the other we list as American common reed (Phragmites americanus).
↑Range - Expand
| Legend | Color |
| Introduced | |
| Introduced or Not Present |
This tentative map is based on our own research. It may have limited data on Canada and/or Mexico, and there is some subjectivity in our assignment of plants as introduced vs. expanded. Read more in this blog post.
Although this plant occurs somewhere in each of these regions, it may only occur in a small part of some or all of them.
This species is usually divided into two subspecies, one native to North America, restricted to the north and west, and rare and scattered in most of its range, and a second, native to Eurasia, which has been introduced and become invasive. Maps of this species can be misleading in that they often mark it as native to much or all of North America.
↑Links & External Resources
• Common Reed | Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis (Giant Reed) | Illinois Wildflowers (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis (Common Reed) | USDA PLANTS Database (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis | Go Botany (About This Site)
• Common Reed | iNaturalist (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis (common reed) | CABI Invasive Species Compendium (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis | Biota of North America Project (BONAP) (About This Site)
• https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77172833-1 | Plants of the World Online (POWO) (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis | NatureServe Explorer (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis | Flora of North America (About This Site)
• American Phragmites | Maryland Biodiversity Project (About This Site)
• Common Reed | Maryland Biodiversity Project (About This Site)
• Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. (Common Reed) | Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (About This Site)
↑Photo gallery
