Perennate

Perennate is a term used in botany and horticulture with two related senses. As an adjective, it describes a plant that lives for more than two years, typically maintaining a perennial life cycle and regrowing across multiple seasons from persistent underground or above-ground structures. As a verb, perennate (to perennate) refers to the process by which a plant survives unfavorable seasons and returns to growth in subsequent years.

Perennation commonly occurs through specialized storage organs such as bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, or persistent crowns. Plants that perennate may die back to these structures in winter or dry seasons and then re-emerge, or they may retain above-ground parts year-round in milder climates. This strategy distinguishes perennials from annuals, which complete their life cycle in one year, and biennials, which do so in two.

In ecological and evolutionary terms, perennation is an adaptation to environments with regular seasonal stress, enabling rescue of regrowth resources after disturbances or resource scarcity. The term perennate is less common in everyday usage than perennial, and it often appears in technical descriptions of plant anatomy, life cycles, or dormancy mechanisms, including discussions of perennating buds.

Etymology traces perennate to Latin perennis, meaning lasting through the year, derived from per- (through) and annus (year). See also perennial, annual, biennial, and related storage organs such as bulbs, rhizomes, and tubers.