386 mSSONS WITS PLANTS 



LXXV. THE DURATION OF PLANTS 



486. Beans which are planted in spring complete 

 their span of life and die before the close of the 

 growing season. The plant is an annual. 



487. The mullein, bull -thistle and teasel produce 

 spreading rosettes of leaves the first year from seed, 

 the leaves lying nearly flat upon the ground. The 

 next year the seed-stalk, or bushy plant, is thrown 

 up from this crown of leaves ; the plant blossoms, 

 produces seeds, and dies. The plant lives two 

 years. It is a biennial, 



488. Quack-grass, golden-rods, bleeding-heart, 

 roses, lilac bushes, trees, live on from year to year. 

 They are perennials, — living more than two years. 



489. When castor- oil beans, red peppers, cotton 

 and other warm-country plants, are grown at the 

 North, they are killed by the frost. In other 

 words, they do not mature normally in the short 

 seasons ; and in their native homes they may be 

 perennials. These are plur- annuals. 



489a. A plur-annual, then, is an annual only because It is killed 

 by the closing of the season, as by frost, in distinction to the true 

 annual, which dies at the close of the Sdason, or before, because of 

 natural ripeness or maturity. 



490. The annual preserves or perpetuates its 

 kind by means of seed?. Crocuses, potatoes, lilies, 



