Phalaris arundinaceaL.

reed canary grass

WFO wfo-0000889610 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Jean Sorensen
fig. a Jean Sorensen, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-06 / obs. 203968882
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. b Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203874954
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Jean Sorensen
fig. c Jean Sorensen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203968434
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. d Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203401253
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Michel Langeveld
fig. e Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203248791
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Björn Sothmann
fig. f Björn Sothmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 201539454
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Zoltán Stekkelpak
fig. g Zoltán Stekkelpak, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201627056
Phalaris arundinacea, photographed by Repina Tatyana
fig. h Repina Tatyana, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199604467

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 = 656 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 656 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 82 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.

  • Arundo colorata Aiton
  • Arundo riparia Salisb.
  • Baldingera arundinacea (L.) Dumort.
  • Baldingera arundinacea f. colorata G.M.Sch.
  • Baldingera arundinacea f. colorata P.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb.
  • Baldingera arundinacea f. rotgesii (Foucaud & Mandon ex Husn.) Foucaud & Mandon
  • Baldingera arundinacea f. umbrosa Peterm.
  • Baldingera arundinacea var. alba Tinant
  • Baldingera arundinacea var. picta (L.) Peterm.
  • Baldingera arundinacea var. picta (L.) Nyman
  • Baldingera arundinacea var. rotgesii Husn.
  • Baldingera arundinacea var. variegata Coss. & Germ.
  • Baldingera colorata (Sibth.) G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb.
  • Calamagrostis colorata Sibth.
  • Calamagrostis colorata var. variegata Chevall.
  • Calamagrostis variegata With.
  • Digraphis americana Elliott ex G.Don
  • Digraphis arundinacea (L.) Trin.
  • Digraphis arundinacea var. picta (L.) T.Marsson
  • Endallex arundinacea Raf.
  • Endallex arundinacea Raf. ex B.D.Jacks.
  • Phalaridantha arundinacea (L.) St.-Lag.
  • Phalaridantha arundinacea var. variegata (Parn.) Cariot
  • Phalaris americana var. picta Eaton & Wright

and 58 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.