Vegetation is an important feature of many rivers. Vegetation along rivers produces high resistance to flow and, as a result, has a large impact on water levels in rivers and lakes. The effects of instream-unsubmerged vegetation (such as the reed-similar Kalmus) on flow resistance and velocity distributions is studied in the paper. Artificial vegetation is used in the experimental study to simulate the Acorus Calmus L. As shown in experimental tests the resistance depends strongly on vegetation density and the Manning resistance coefficient varies with the depth of flow. A simplified model based on concepts of drag is developed to evaluate the roughness coefficient (Manning’s n) for non-submerged vegetation. In vegetated channels the overall flow resistance is influenced significantly by the distribution patt of the vegetated beds. Within vegetation, vertical variation in velocity is different from that in the non-vegetated bed, which reflects the variation in vegetation density. Vertical turbulent transport of momentum is negligible as demonstrated by experiments.