Perennial

Tomato vines, for example, live several years in their natural tropical/ subtropical habitat but are grown as annuals in temperate regions because their above-ground biomass does not survive the winter.

There is also a class of evergreen perennials which lack woody stems, such as Bergenia which retain a mantle of leaves throughout the year.

[7] For example, a century plant can live for 80 years and grow 30 meters tall before flowering and dying.

[10] 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, turions, woody stems, or crowns which allows them to survive periods of dormancy over cold or dry seasons; these structures typically store carbohydrates which are used once the dormancy period is over and new growth begins.

[16] Deciduous perennials shed their leaves when growing conditions are no longer suitable for photosynthesis, such as when it is too cold or dry.

The meristem of perennial plants communicates with the hormones produced due to environmental situations (i.e., seasons), reproduction, and stage of development to begin and halt the ability to grow or flower.

For example, most trees regain the ability to grow during winter but do not initiate physical growth until the spring and summer months.

[19] Perennial species may produce relatively large seeds that have the advantage of generating larger seedlings that can better compete with other plants.

[20] In Thinopyrum intermedium a perennial relative of common wheat Triticum aestivum, conditions of freezing stress were shown to be associated with large increases in expression of two DNA repair genes (one gene product a photolyase and the other, a protein involved in nucleotide excision repair).

[20] Perennials that are cultivated include: woody plants like fruit trees grown for their edible fruits; shrubs and trees grown as landscaping ornamentals; herbaceous food crops like asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries; and subtropical plants not hardy in colder areas such as tomatoes, eggplant, and coleus (which are treated as annuals in colder areas).

[28] Perennial plants often have deep, extensive root systems which can hold soil to prevent erosion, capture dissolved nitrogen before it can contaminate ground and surface water, and out-compete weeds (reducing the need for herbicides).