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Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Wednesday - May 27, 2015

From: Billings, MT
Region: Rocky Mountain
Topic: General Botany
Title: Use of the word annual
Answered by: Jimmy Mills

QUESTION:

Why is the word 'annual' used to describe plants with one grow season, when in all other cases it's used to describe things that reoccur year after year? i.e. Events, celebration, salary?

ANSWER:

The mission of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is to increase the sustainable use and conservation of native wildflowers, plants, and landscapes. In addition, Mr. Smarty Plants likes to impart knowledge when he can.
In English, often times words can have more than one meaning. From the two links below, you can see that this is the case for the word “annual”.

< http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/annual >

< http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/annual >

To keep you occupied, I would like for you to check out our Botanical Glossary and use the Search Bar to find definitions for the words 'biennial" and "perennial". You can also look in the links above.
 

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