Perennial - Life Cycle and Structure

Life Cycle and Structure

Perennial plants can be short-lived (only a few years) or they can be long-lived, as are some woody plants like trees. They include a wide assortment of plant groups from ferns and liverworts to the highly diverse flowering plants like orchids and grasses.

Plants that flower and fruit only once and then die are termed monocarpic or semelparous. However, most perennials are polycarpic (or iteroparous), flowering over many seasons in their lifetime.

Perennials typically grow structures that allow them to adapt to living from one year to the next through a form of vegetative reproduction rather than seeding. These structures include bulbs, tubers, woody crowns, rhizomes plus others. They might have specialized stems or crowns that allow them to survive periods of dormancy over cold or dry seasons during the year. Annuals produce seeds to continue the species as a new generation while the growing season is suitable, and the seeds survive over the cold or dry period to begin growth when the conditions are again suitable.

Many perennials have specialized to survive under extreme environmental conditions: some have adapted to survive hot and dry conditions, or to survive under cold temperatures. Those plants tend to invest a lot of resource into their adaptations and often do not flower and set seed until after a few years of growth. Many perennials produce relatively large seeds, which can have an advantage, with larger seedlings produced after germination that can better compete with other plants. Some annuals produce many more seeds per plant in one season, while some (polycarpic) perennials are not under the same pressure to produce large numbers of seeds but can produce seeds over many years.