HOW ONE SEASON PEEPAKES FOR THE NEXT 163 



XXVII.— HOW ONE SEASON PREPAEES FOR 

 THE NEXT. 



1. Some plants, like the poppy or the garden pea, 

 die before winter comes ; others, like the carrot, live 

 for two seasons ; and others, again, like the oak tree, 

 live for many years. 



2. Annuals, biennials, and perennials. The 



plants that live for one season only are called 

 annuals. Such a plant is the portulaca. The 

 portulaca puts out its beautiful white, pink, red, or 

 yellow flowers in the hot months; and so you need 

 not sow the seed you have saved till the winter is 

 quite over. This plant, then, disappears entirely 

 from Victoria at the end of summer. No trace of 

 the plant remains, and, but for the tiny shining seeds 

 that glisten in the seed-cup, we should have no more 

 portulaca. 



3. The plants that live on through the winter for one 

 more season are called biennials. Such are the 

 carrot, turnip, and other vegetables that spend one 

 season in storing up food in order that they may 

 flower in the second year. Plants that live on, 

 year after year, like the oak, are called perennials. 

 Compare a red gum that was a great tree when 

 William the Norman set foot in England with a 

 Shirley poppy that lives for four months, and you 

 will see what a step we have made in passing from 

 the annual to the perennial. 



4. How trees begin in spring to prepare for 

 next spring. Having looked at the seeds that carry 

 the life of the annual from one season to another, we 



