Fig. 76. Flowering Reed

The Description.

            Flowering Reed hath a thick and fat stalk of four or five foot high, great below near the ground, and smaller toward the top, taper-wise: whereupon do grow very fair broad leaves full of ribs or sinews like unto Plantains, in shape representing the leaves of white Hellebore, or the great Gentian, but much broader and larger every way: at the top of which stalks do grow fantastic flowers of a red or vermilion colour; which being faded, there follow round, rough, and prickly knobs, like those of Sparganium, or Water-Bur, of a brown colour, and from the middle of those knobs three small leaves. The seed contained in those knobs is exceeding black, of a perfect roundness, of the bigness of the smallest peas. The root is thick, knobby, and tuberous, with certain small threads fixed thereto. There is a variety of this, having flowers of a yellow or saffron colour, with red spots.

The Place.

            It groweth in Italy in the garden of Padua, and many other places of those hot regions. Myself have planted it in my garden divers times, but it never came to flowering or seeding, for that it is very impatient to endure the injury of our cold climate. It is a native of the West Indies.

The Time.

            It must be set or sown in the beginning of April, in a pot with fine earth, or in a bed made with horse-dung, and some earth strawed thereon, in such manner as Cucumbers and Musk-Melons are.

The Names.

            The name Arundo indica is diversely attributed to sundry of the Reeds, but principally unto this, called of Lobel, Cannacorus: of others, Arundo florida, and Harundo florida: in English, the Flowering Reed.

The Nature and values.

            There is not anything set down as touching the temperature and virtues or this Flowering Reed, either of the ancients, or of the new or later Writers.