Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Whether you have a garden or you're interested in starting one, you're likely familiar with the terms annual and perennial. Both ...

Understanding the Context

When you hear perennial, you probably think of peonies rather than pines. The word today typically describes (or, as a noun, refers to) plants that die back seasonally but produce new growth in the spring. Perennial typically describes things that are permanent, constant, or repeated. If you fight with your parents every year over whether they really must invite your annoying cousins for Thanksgiving, you could call that a perennial conflict.

Key Insights

Trees and shrubs, including all gymnosperms (cone-bearing plants), are perennials, as are some herbaceous (nonwoody) flowering plants and vegetative ground covers. perennial noun [C] (PLANT) a plant that lives for more than two years (Definition of perennial from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary ยฉ Cambridge University Press) Perennial plants can be short-lived (only a few years) or long-lived. They include a wide assortment of plant groups from non-flowering plants like ferns and liverworts to highly diverse flowering plants like orchids, grasses, and woody plants. You use perennial to describe situations or states that keep occurring or which seem to exist all the time; used especially to describe problems or difficulties. Noun perennial (plural perennials) (botany) A plant that is active throughout the year, or has a life cycle of more than two growing seasons.

Final Thoughts

Coordinate terms: annual, biennial, evergreen