A perennial plant or simply perennial (Latin per, "through", annus, "year") is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials. More correctly, woody plants like shrubs and trees are also perennials.
Perennials, especially small flowering plants, that grow and bloom over the spring and summer, die back every autumn and winter, and then return in the spring from their root-stock, are known as herbaceous perennials. However, depending on the rigors of local climate, a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, or in a milder garden, may be treated by a gardener as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings or from divisions.
The symbol for a perennial plant, based on Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, is, which is also the astronomical symbol for the planet Jupiter.
Read more about Perennial Plant: Life Cycle and Structure, Growth, Benefits in Agriculture, Location, Types, Perennial Fruits, Perennial Herbs, Perennial Vegetables
Famous quotes containing the words perennial and/or plant:
“There is no arguing with the pretenders to a divine knowledge and to a divine mission. They are possessed with the sin of pride, they have yielded to the perennial temptation.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)