Biennials

Biennials, or BIENNIAL PLANTS, are plants which do not flower in the first season of their growth, but flower and bear fruit in the second season, and then die. The most familiar example is perhaps that of the common foxglove (Digitalis). Many of our cultivated plants are biennials, as the carrot, turnip, parsnip, parsley, celery, &c., and many of the most esteemed flowers of our gardens, as stock, wallflower, honesty, &c. But plants which in ordinary circumstances are biennials, often become Annuals (q.v.), when early sowing, warm weather, or other causes promote the earlier development of a flowering stem, as is continually exemplified in all the kinds already named. If, on the other hand, the flowering of the plant is prevented—or, in many cases, if it is merely prevented from ripening its seed—it will continue to live for a much longer period; the same bed of parsley, if regularly cut over, will remain productive for a number of years, while a normally annual plant like mignonette may be kept growing for two years or more if its flowering be carefully prevented.