Plant Life Cycles

A perennial is a plant that lives for many years, and blooms usually every season.

An annual is a plant that completes its life cycle after one year, either germinating in spring and dying at frost, or germinating in fall, and blooming in spring and dying in summer.

A biennial is a plant that germinates and grows a "rosette" the first year of growth, and then blooms the second year, sets seed and dies.

A monocarp is a plant that blooms only once. The plant may persist for many years only as leaves, only sending up a flowering stalk in a single year (this is known as "bolting"). These plants some consider perennials, and while they do live many years some times, it is misleading to call them that because many people consider a perennial a plant that bloom over and over, but a monocarp only blooms once and then dies after setting seed.

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