What the pencil and the sweet flag have in common or the migration of words and meanings

The Gr. κάλαμος ‘cane, a thing made of cane: pen, rural pipe, fishing rod etc.’ is the primary source of certain terms for the sweet flag (Acorus calamus L.) and numerous names for a pencil in many different languages. Namely, the Greek word was borrowed by Latin in the form calamus, with the same meaning, whence originated many Germanic terms for the sweet flag. What is more, the dialectal Pol. kalmus is a loanword from the Germ. Kalmus ‘sweet flag’. Additionally, the Gr. κάλαμος was borrowed by Arabic in the form qalam, whence the Osm. kalém. The forms in other Turkic languages are borrowings from Turkish. Some Albanian, Bulgarian and Macedonian terms for a pencil are also loanwords from the Turk. kalem ‘pen, thin brush, oblong bone’. The terms in many Caucasian languages are Arabisms. Moreover, the Russ. карандаш ‘pencil’, as well as many other contemporary forms from Altaic, Uralic and other languages, which constitute new borrowings from Russian today, are in fact compounds consisting of kalam ‘cane’ and daš ‘stone’.