"I remember," said Davy. "I helped you."
"Why don't you have to plant them every year?" asked Prue.
"Because they are perennials—they live on, year after year."
Prue did not seem to understand very well, so the Chief Gardener explained.
"There are three kinds of plants," he said: "Annuals, biennials, and perennials. The annuals live but one season. They come from the seed each spring, and when they have grown and bloomed and made seed for another year they die. Sweet-pease and sunflowers and Davy's corn are annuals."
"And radishes and beets," said Davy.
"No, Davy. That is where you are mistaken."
"But we have to plant them every spring," said Davy.
"We do so to get good vegetables for our table. But if we were planting only for seed we would leave the roots in the ground, or take them up and reset them in the spring. Then they would send up long stalks to bloom and bear seed. Beets and radishes and turnips and most such things are biennials, which means that they bloom the second year and then die. They spend all the first year in laying up strength in the roots, to use in making seed the second summer. Some biennials, like the cabbage, lay up this strength in the thick stalk. The strength which they take up from the earth and from the air, through their leaves, they do not spend in flowers and show, but turn it into food for themselves, and the food is so good that men gather it for their own use."
"I don't think that is quite right," said Prue, "after the poor thing has worked so hard all summer to be ready to bloom next year, for us to take it and eat it."