ANNUALS AND BIENNIALS. 



By Robert Cameron, Cambridge, Mass. 



Delivered before the Society, January 25, 1908. 



From a horticultural standpoint an annual is a showy flowering 

 plant which lives but one season and, consequently, requires to be 

 raised from seed each year. 



A biennial is a showy flowering plant which is produced from 

 seed in one year, and blooms, ripens its seed, and dies the year 

 following. 



These definitions do not always hold good as there are some 

 annuals that can be kept longer than one year, if they are restrained 

 from flowering and fruiting. 



Annual plants give more pleasure to a larger number of persons, 

 are less expensive, easier to grow, and give quicker results than any 

 plants that are grown in our gardens. They are the poor man's 

 plants as well as the rich man's. They are not like the orchids 

 which can only be enjoyed by the wealthy, in fact, they are the real 

 plants for the masses. They are so cheap that there is no excuse 

 for the poorest people in our thickly-settled tenement districts to 

 be without plants. 



Origin of Annuals. 



No doubt some of you have wondered, as I have, why nature 

 gave such a short period of time to these plants to complete the 

 cycle of life, while to others she has given an almost indefinite time 

 to live. Why are they so short lived and have they been always 

 annuals? These are puzzling questions and very little has been 

 written about them. 



We are told by scientists that flowering plants have come to us 



39 



