| 释义 |
reed-mace
[reed n.1]
a. An aquatic plant, Typha latifolia, common on the margins of ponds and lakes, having long ensiform leaves and tall stems, the latter terminated by dense cylindrical spikes of small brownish flowers. (Also called cat's-tail or cat-tail, and bulrush.)
b. The smaller species, Typha angustifolia.
The two species are sometimes distinguished as greater reed-mace (or broad-leaved reed-mace) and lesser reed-mace.
1548Turner Names Herbes (E.D.S.) 79 Typha groweth in fennes and water sydes among the reedes... It is called in englishe cattes tayle, or a Reedmace. 1562― Herbal ii. 159 b, It maye be..called rede mace, because boyes vse it in theyr handes in the stede of a mace. 1578Lyte Dodoens iv. liii. 513 Turner calleth it in Englishe, Reede Mace, and Cattes tayle. 1668Wilkins Real Char. ii. iv. §3. 73. 1691 Ray Creation i. (1692) 100 The number of seeds produced at once in some one Plant, as for example Reed-mace..may amount to a Million. 1777Forster Voy. round World I. 217 The seams between them are caulked with the downy or woolly substance of the reed-mace. 1785Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxviii. 431 The greater, or broad-leaved Cat's-tail, otherwise called Reed-mace. 1817J. Bradbury Trav. Amer. 116 There was a considerable quantity of the down of reedmace, (Typha palustris). 1842W. R. Wade Journey N. Zealand (Morris), The raupo, the reed-mace of New Zealand, always grows in swampy ground. 1884Jefferies Red Deer ix. 176 By the shore flourishes the tall reed-mace (so rarely distinguished from the lesser bulrush). |