in botany. See Arundo and Bamboo.

There are two sorts of reeds, says Hafslquilt, growing near the Nile. One of them has scarce any branches; but is furnished with numerous leaves, which are narrow, smooth, channelled on the upper surface; and the plant is about 11 feet high. The Egyptians make ropes of the leaves. They lay them in water like hemp, and then make them into good strong cables. These, with the bark of the date-tree, form almost the only cable used in the Nile. The other sort is of great consequence. It is a small reed, about two or three feet high, full branched, with short, sharp, lancet-shaped leaves. The roots, which are as thick as the stem, creep and mat themselves together to a considerable distance. This plant seems useless in common life; but to it, continues the learned author, is the very foil of Egypt owing: for the matted roots have stopped the earth which floated in the waters, and thus formed, out of the sea, a country that is habitable.

Fire-Reeds. See Fire-Ship.

term in the west of England for the straw used by thatchers, which is wheat straw finely combed, consisting of stiff, unbruised, and unbroken stalks of great length, carefully separated from the straw used for fodder by the thresher, and bound in sheaves or nitches, each of which weighs 28 lb. and are sold from 21 s. to 31 s. per hundred nitches, according to the season. This is a great improvement in the art of thatching, as it gives a finish to the work which cannot be attained by straw, rough and tumbled together, without any separation of the long and short: it also is a readier mode of working.