Reed cane, giant reed (Arundo donax)
POACEAE, Grass Family
Music has had a long and close association with plants, because most instruments that we use today either still require plant products or developed from primitive instruments that were originally made from plants. Wood, of course, is one of the chief products, used extensively for the construction of pianos, organs, and string instruments, and the choice of woods is very carefully prescribed, because the structure of the parts is extremely critical to obtain the desired notes and qualities. Percussion instruments often require woody parts, and deep in the ancestry of drums, which nowadays may bear no wood, one can easily demonstrate that many early forms came from logs. A visit to an ethnomusicology museum would also prove that brass and woodwind instruments trace their histories from primitive hollow tubes-mostly constructed from wooden or woodlike objects-flutes and pipes with holes to cover in order to produce different notes.
One plant, Arundo donax, holds an especially lofty position of importance among plants used in music, because this is the source of materials for the reeds of woodwind instruments. The woodwind family of instruments produces sound via the vibration of the air within the instrument caused by the vibration of a reed in the mouthpiece. As Benny Goodman or any famous woodwind musician would tell you, the reed is very special because it is strong but very flexible and capable of being wetted for playing and then dried for storage. Plastic reeds can now be made that propagate useful vibrations, but the quality of sounds produced in no way matches that of a vibrating, wetted plant reed.
Reed cane, the common name of Arundo donax, is a name that probably should not be used, because it is both vague and misleading. "Reed," of course, identifies this as the source of the reed of woodwinds, but confuses because a reed does not originate from plants that are called reeds, e.g., Phragmites. Both are members of the grass family, but that is where the similarity ends. "Cane" is misleading because Arundo is thereby lumped with plants used in producing cane furniture (e.g., bamboos) and with sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum, the source of crystalline sucrose for our foods. True that all of these are grasses, but only Arundo donax is both flexible and strong enough to be used for the job. Some people refer to this plant as bamboo reed, not realizing again that Arundo is not a true bamboo, and that bamboos are much too hard and rigid to use for the vibrating element.
Arundo donax is a tall perennial grass that grows to a height of nine meters and looks much like a clump-forming bamboo, with many stems (culms) arising from thick, creeping rhizomes (Examples: rhizomes and more rhizomes). It generally grows in subtropical regions along streams and drainage ditches, but can be cultivated in temperate regions that have mild winter temperature and sometimes is grown in the tropics near villages. Young shoots bear dull green leaves that are similar in appearance to those of maize (Zea mays) or sugar cane, but as the shoots grow, the differences are magnified. Arundo donax, as most grasses large and small, has hollow stem internodes, whereas both maize and sugar cane have solid stem internodes. Reed cane first grows an unbranched axis, but in its second year often produces lateral branches in the upper half of the shoot, much as in bamboos. Like bamboos, the stems are fairly stiff and therefore "woody," although no wood forms because these are monocotyledons, which have no vascular cambium.
Wherever it now grows, farmers use the stems for poles, e.g., for staking up plants, constructing fences, or fishing poles. The plant is easily propagated by cutting up the rhizomes (often called "roots") and permitting the rhizome to form new green shoots and adventitious roots. Arundo donax can also be cloned from a cutting of an old stem with an axillary bud; this is soaked for several days in water and planted right side up, and if watered fairly frequently, the node will yield new shoot and roots.
Arundo donax appears to be a native of the eastern Mediterranean region, but this is difficult to determine because the plant has been spread around the world by humans as well as by floods, which unearth the rhizomes growing along rivers. Its use for musical instruments comes from the Near East, where there are records of flutes over 5000 years old made from stem internodes. One ancient musical instrument was the pan pipe, consisting of up to 25 tubes arranged in order of length, and ancient artwork depicted how pan pipes were played by mythical characters. The modern mouthpiece for woodwinds was developed during the Renaissance, when workers discovered that donax reeds would vibrate when moist but would not crack when dried. Greece, Spain, France, and Italy are still places where Arundo is grown.
Shoots of reed cane are harvested in the fall or winter following the second or third year of growth, when the plants are dormant and the cells have had a chance to harden. Leaves are removed, and the poles are dried in upright or horizontal formations until all cells are killed and most moisture is removed. The poles are shortened to the basal three meters and then individually placed in the sun to bleach out any green (chlorophyll) color, leaving the natural tans and browns. The pole is then cut with a band saw into internodal tubes about four inches in length. Only those tubes that are over 25 millimeters in diameter and have a "wall" 3 millimeters or more in thickness are kept, so the ones closest to the ground are used because they are wider and have thicker stem tissues. Tubes are shipped in bags to the factory, where they are split lengthwise into four "blanks." Blanks are sanded to have a flat inner side and then "vamped" by sanding to form the thin vibrating tip. Millions of reeds are manufactured by such factories for use by musicians, and especially thousands of school bands and orchestras create a large need. There are some musicians, however, who insist on making their own by using nonmechanized techniques.
The various woodwind instruments require different types and sizes of reeds, e.g., tenor, baritone, and alto saxophone and clarinet. The oboe and bassoon have special double reeds, and bagpipes also need a special design. So, from Bourbon Street to the bonnie hills about Loch Lomond, there is a need for reed cane.