Arundo donaxL.

giant reed

WFO wfo-0000850932 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g

Arundo donax, photographed by Elizabete Marchante
fig. a Elizabete Marchante, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 201598279
Arundo donax, photographed by Pablo
fig. b Pablo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205449692
Arundo donax, photographed by Daniel Das
fig. c Daniel Das, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202044573
Arundo donax, photographed by Elizabete Marchante
fig. d Elizabete Marchante, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199664533
Arundo donax, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. e Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201922488
Arundo donax, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. f Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198947212
Arundo donax, photographed by Mauricio Calderón
fig. g Mauricio Calderón, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199971657

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 368 observations

Peak flowering in Sep, from 368 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 41 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Aira bengalensis (Retz.) J.F.Gmel.
  • Amphidonax bengalensis (Retz.) Steud.
  • Amphidonax bengalensis Nees
  • Amphidonax bifaria Nees ex Steud.
  • Arundo aegyptia Delile
  • Arundo aegyptiaca E.Vilm.
  • Arundo bambusifolia Hook.f.
  • Arundo bengalensis Retz.
  • Arundo bifaria Retz.
  • Arundo coleotricha (Hack.) Honda
  • Arundo coleotricha var. barbigera Honda
  • Arundo coleotricha var. versicolor (Mill.) Stokes
  • Arundo donax f. donax
  • Arundo donax f. versicolor (Mill.) Beetle
  • Arundo donax var. angustifolia Döll
  • Arundo donax var. barbigera (Honda) Ohwi
  • Arundo donax var. coleotricha Hack.
  • Arundo donax var. donax
  • Arundo donax var. lanceolata Döll
  • Arundo donax var. procerior Kunth
  • Arundo donax var. variegata Poit. & A.Vilm.
  • Arundo donax var. variegata E.Vilm.
  • Arundo donax var. versicolor (Mill.) Stokes
  • Arundo glauca Bubani

and 17 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.