Habit: 		Tall perennial with long, stout, creeping rhizomes and often with leafy stolons.
Culms: 		Erect, stout, leafy, 1.5-4 m. tall, glabrous.
Blades: 	15-40 cm. long, 8-50 mm. wide, flat, glabrous, narrowed and rounded at the base.
Sheaths: 	Overlapping, crowded, loose.
Ligule: 	A ring of very short hairs.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle large, terminal, tawny, 15-40 cm. long, branches ascending,
		the spikelets numerous on slender, scabrous pedicels, much shorter than the spikelets.
Spikelets: 	Numerous, 12-15 mm. long, 3-several-flowered, the lower flower staminate,
		the rest perfect; rachilla covered with long silky hairs which exceed the florets,
		the florets successively smaller; disarticulating above the glumes and at the
		base of each joint between the florets.
Glumes: 	Unequal, lanceolate, acute, the first 3-4 mm. long, 3-nerved, the second
		about twice as long but shorter than the florets, often 5-nerved.
Lemmas: 	10-12 mm. long, narrow, long-acuminate, glabrous, 3-nerved, that of the
		lowest floret somewhat longer, equaling the uppermost florets, empty or
		subtending a staminate flower, the other florets perfect.
Palea: 		Hyaline, much shorter than its lemma, 2-keeled.
Habitat: 	Swamps, marshes and in water.  August-October.
Synonyms:	Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. var. berlandieri (Fourn.) C.F. Reed
		Phragmites communis Trin.
		Phragmites communis Trin. ssp. berlandieri (Fourn.) A.& D. Löve
		Phragmites communis Trin. var. berlandieri (Fourn.) Fern.
		Phragmites phragmites (L.) Karst.