Herbaceous plants: characteristics and examples

The characteristic that defines a plant as herbaceous is its absence of woody stems , unlike shrubs and trees. They also produce leaves and stems that are green in the vast majority of occasions, and many have terminal and abundant blooms.

These plants are widely used in gardening for the aesthetic value of their flowers, as well as as covering plants to cover from small flower beds to large plantations, although there are a large number of wild herbaceous plants and we can even find edible herbaceous plants. Nor should we forget its medicinal properties , which many of them offer in their essential oils or in the form of an infusion. Also included in this classification are the so-called weeds, which are not bad at all, but they receive this name due to their capacity and tendency to spread easily and, therefore, to be in land where they are not desired, such as plantations or orchards.

In fact, most of the fruits and vegetables that can be found in our supermarkets and pantries come from herbaceous plants of one of the types that we are going to see below

Despite its great variety, there is a classification that includes herbaceous plant species according to their life cycles in the first four cases and according to their size for megaforbias, the last type of the classification. These are the following:

• Annuals
• Biannuals
• Lively
• Perennials
• Megaforbias

Annual herbaceous plants, also commonly called seasonal plants , are those that complete their entire life cycle in one year. This means that at this time they germinate, flourish, bear fruit and die, leaving behind the seeds of the next generation. Most of them are summer, growing and blooming in the hottest season of the year, although there are also winter ones, which do so in the cold months.

Some examples of annual herbaceous are:

• Sunflower
• Calendula
• Petunia
• Poppy
• Corn

The Perennial seem to dry up and die in the cold season, but their roots and survive when spring comes again sprout again, reborn as well. They have bulbs or rhizomes that they keep underground, and they tend to be very adaptable and hardy. By having this type of life cycle, these plants tend to have long lives. Some of them are:

• Lupine
• Loosestrife
• Peony
• Astilbe
• Delfinio
• Sea lavender
• Heuchera

Perennials are distinguished from other grasses by having the ability to stay green throughout the year. They keep their leaves and stem that way regardless of the season, and they also tend to show a remarkably long life expectancy. Here are some perennial herbaceous plants :

• Geranium
• Carnation
• Love bow, ribbon or malamadre
• Sansevieria
• Gaura

Biennial grasses resemble annuals, but their life cycle lasts two seasons instead of just one year. These plants germinate and grow during their first year of life, but only during the second year do they flower and bear fruit, dying later. In gardening, these plants tend to lose aesthetic value when they reach their second year, since their life cycle begins to come to an end and the plant seems to be impoverished. Here are some examples of biennial herbaceous plants :

• Evening primrose
• Lunaria annua
• Marine poppy
• Wallflower
• Linen

Megaforbs are also commonly called giant herbs. These are plants whose characteristics coincide with those of the rest of herbaceous plants, except in the detail of their size. Megaforbias reach sizes much larger than those of the rest of herbaceous plants, in some cases reaching heights of several meters. The most common examples are bananas and palm trees. Did you think palm trees were trees? It may seem a bit strange to think about it, but it is about herbaceous megaphorbias , that is, herbs. These are the most common megaforbs:

• Banana trees
• Palms
• Bamboos