Herbaceous plant

Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground,[1][2] including many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials.[3] Herbaceous plants include graminoids, forbs, and ferns.[4] Forbs are generally defined as herbaceous broad leafed plants,[5] while graminoids are plants with grass-like appearance including the true grasses, sedges, and rushes.[6][7] In some botanical sources, the noun “herb” refers to a “plant that does not produce a woody stem”, and the adjective “herbaceous” means “herb-like”, referring to parts of the plant that are green and soft in texture”.[8][9] The word “herb” has also other meanings in cooking, medicine, and other fields.[10]

Herbaceous plants most often are low growing plants, different from woody plants like trees, and tend to have soft green stems that lack lignification and their above-ground growth is ephemeral and often seasonal in duration.[11] By contrast, non-herbaceous vascular plants are woody plants which have stems above ground that remain alive, even during any dormant season, and grow shoots the next year from the above-ground parts – these include trees, shrubs, vines and woody bamboos. Banana plants are also regarded as a herbaceous plant because the stem does not contain true woody tissue.[12]