Evergreen refers to a plant that keeps its leaves through the winter. Unlike deciduous plants that lose their leaves during the cold season, evergreen plants stay green, keeping the leaves intact.
Evergreen plants include both trees and shrubs. You can often work out the fact that a plant is evergreen from its Latin name sempervirens, which translates to "always green".[1]
Evergreen plants include:[1]
- Conifers (many of them but not all)
- Ferns
- Angiosperms from frost-free climates such as rainforest trees, eucalyptus trees
- Many New Zealand native plants
- Cycads
- Mosses.