Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant that haes leafs in aw fower saisons, aye green. This contrasts wi deciduous plants, that completely lose thair foliage in the winter or dry saison. Thare mony different kins o evergreen plants, baith trees an shrubs. Evergreens include:
- maist species o conifers (e.g. hemlock, blue spruce, reid cedar, an white/scots/jack pine), but nae aw (e.g. larick)
- live aik, holly, an "auncient" gymnosperms like cycads
- maist angiosperms frae frost-free climates, such as eucalypts an rainforest trees
The Laitin binomial term sempervirens (leeterally, "always green") refers tae the evergreen naitur o the plant, for instance:
- Acer sempervirens (a maple)
- Cupressus sempervirens (a cypress)
- Lonicera sempervirens (a honeysuckle)
- Sequoia sempervirens (a sequoia)
- Ulmus parvifolia 'Sempervirens' (an elm)
Leaf persistence in evergreen plants varies frae a few month (wi new leafs constantly bein grown as auld anes is shed) tae several decades (ower thirty year in the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine[1]).