Plantae > Tracheophyta > Liliopsida > Acorales > Acoraceae > Acorus > Acorus calamus

Acorus calamus (calamus)

Synonyms: Acorus aromaticus; Acorus vulgaris; Calamus aromaticus

Wikipedia Abstract

Acorus calamus (also called sweet flag or calamus, among many common names) is a tall perennial wetland monocot of the Acoraceae family, in the genus Acorus. In spite of common names that include the words "rush" and "sedge", it is neither a rush nor sedge. The scented leaves and more strongly scented rhizomes have traditionally been used medicinally and to make fragrances, and the dried and powdered rhizome has been used as a substitute for ginger, cinnamon andnutmeg.
View Wikipedia Record: Acorus calamus

Infraspecies

Acorus calamus var. americanus (sweetflag) (Attributes)
Acorus calamus var. angustatus
Acorus calamus var. calamus

Attributes

Bloom Period [1]  Late Spring
Drought Tolerance [1]  None
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [1]  High
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [1]  90 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [1]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [1]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [1]  Summer
Growth Form [1]  Rhizomatous
Growth Period [1]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [1]  Moderate
Hazards [2]  The fresh root can be poisonous; When using the plant medicinally, the isolated essential oil should not be used; The essential oil in the roots of some populations of this plant contains the compound asarone. This has tranquillising and antibiotic activity, but is also potentially toxic and carcinogenic; It seems that these compounds are found in the triploid form of the species (found in Asia) whilst the diploid form (found in N. America and Siberia) is free of the compounds; However, the root (but not the isolated essential oil) has been used in India for thousands of years without reports of cancer which suggests that using the whole herb is completely safe, though more research is needed;
Leaf Type [1]  Deciduous
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Propagation [1]  Bare Root, Container, Sprig
Regrowth Rate [1]  Moderate
Root Depth [1]  12 inches (30 cm)
Scent [2]  A refreshing scent of cinnamon.
Seed Spread Rate [1]  None
Seed Vigor [1]  Low
Seeds Per [1]  498453 / lb (1098902 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [1]  Semi-Erect
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [2]  The leaves are used in basket making or woven into mats; They have also been used as a thatch for roofs; An essential oil from the rhizome is used in perfumery and as a food flavouring; The oil is contained mainly in the outer skin of the root; The fresh roots yield about 1.5 - 3.5% essential oil, dried roots about 0.8%; Some plants from Japan have yielded 5% essential oil; The essential oil is also an insect repellent and insecticide; It is effective against houseflies; When added to rice being stored in granaries it has significantly reduced loss caused by insect damage because the oil in the root has sterilized the male rice weevils; An essential oil obtained from the leaves is used in perfumery and for making aromatic vinegars; The leaves and the root have a refreshing scent of cinnamon; All parts of plant can be dried and used to repel insects or to scent linen cupboards; They can also be burnt as an incense; The growing plant is said to repel mosquitoes;
Vegetative Spread Rate [1]  Moderate
Flower Color [1]  Yellow
Foliage Color [1]  Green
Fruit Color [1]  Brown
Height [2]  39 inches (1 m)
Width [2]  39 inches (1 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 3 Low Temperature: -40 F° (-40 C°) → -30 F° (-34.4 C°)
Light Preference [3]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [3]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [3]  Rich
Soil Moisture [3]  Wet
Water Use [1]  High
Screening - Summer [1]  Dense
Screening - Winter [1]  Porous
View Plants For A Future Record : Acorus calamus

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Central & Western Europe Austria, Belgium, Byelarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom Palearctic Temperate Floodplain River and Wetlands    
Northern Baltic Drainages Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden Palearctic Polar Freshwaters    
Upper Danube Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland Palearctic Temperate Floodplain River and Wetlands    

Protected Areas

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0