Plants

Plants are found all across Terraria, including several types of grass, mushrooms, cacti, herbs, thorny bushes, sunflowers, and more. Most of them can be harvested to collect itself or its seeds. Each biome has its own types of plants.

Mushrooms
Regular Mushrooms can be turned into Vile Mushrooms and vice versa using Purification Powder, Unholy Water, or Holy water respectively.

Vines
Vines can be seen hanging from Dirt Blocks if grass has spread there, or from Mud Blocks with Jungle Grass. In either case, there must be empty space below for the vine to grow (a Torch or a Wood Platform, for example, will block them). Vines can be cut easily with nearly any Weapon or Tool, as the whole vine will instantly be destroyed if the top piece of the vine or the block that the vine is hanging from are destroyed. If that cannot be done, a vine can be destroyed by getting hit by a pickaxe or having the block they are hanging from be latched to by a grappling hook. Vines block light, but do not impede movement.

Contrarily to tall grass, vines do not require sunlight and will grow behind walls and underground.

Vines will never drop the Vine object; this is a rare Man Eater drop.

Cacti



 * Main article: Cactus

Cacti can be found in the Desert biome on sand. They can be chopped down, like trees, to receive Cactus. However, unlike trees, you can mine the sand from beneath them, which will destroy the cactus.


 * As of patch 1.1, they no longer deal damage to players who touch them.
 * Prior to 1.0.6, cacti destroyed blocks as they grew. Currently, a block in the way cancels growth.

Thorny bushes


Thorny bushes are plants that grow naturally in the Corruption and the Underground Jungle, like grass. Unlike grass though, Thorny Bushes will damage the player on contact. Currently, there are two types of thorny bushes: red bushes that grow in the Underground Jungle which deal 25 damage and purple bushes that grow in the Corruption that deal 10 damage. Thorny Bushes grow in all directions (not just upwards), and may spread. All NPCs and monsters are immune to them. They cannot be obtained as an item. The Corruption variant of Thorny Bushes spreads corruption, the Jungle variant, however, does not spread jungle grass. Thorny bushes can not grow over or otherwise affect vines; therefore vines can prevent the propagation of Corruption across large gaps that would otherwise require careful maintenence.


 * As of patch 1.0.6, thorny bushes are now destroyed on contact with the player.

Sunflowers

 * Main article: Sunflower

Sunflowers are found on grass on the surface. They are not only there for decoration, but they also stop corruption from spreading. You can pick them up by destroying the grass on the block under them with a pickaxe to receive a Sunflower. As of 1.1, activating hardmode will cause corruption to spread past sunflowers on its path, breaking them when the corruption touches the ground that it sits on.