Trees



Trees are the largest plants in Terraria, appearing mostly at the surface and often in clusters with similar height. Trees can be chopped down with an axe or chainsaw, destroyed with the use of explosives, or by pouring lava on their bases. Destroying or chopping down a tree will yield many units of its respective wood, an essential crafting material, and has a chance of dropping one or more Acorns that can be planted to grow more trees. Larger trees will yield more of these two items when removed; one unit of wood will drop for each block of tree (including branches), and one Acorn may drop for each leaf patch.

It is possible to cut off parts of the tree, but cutting at the lowermost center tile will destroy the entire tree. If parts of the tree are left, they will not regrow. Tiles beneath trees cannot be destroyed or actuated.

Tree saplings can be painted, although this won't affect the tree at all. However, painting the blocks underneath the sapling will result in the tree being painted when it matures.

Three other large plants do not drop wood and spawn differently, but are otherwise treated similarly to trees. These are Giant Glowing Mushrooms, Cactus and Bamboo.

Forest trees
Forest trees are the most common type of tree, and can be found growing on regular grass. They can be planted on regular grass in any biome. They yield Acorns and regular Wood when harvested. Many Forest trees eventually turn into Corrupted, Crimson or Hallowed ones if the area they grow on is overtaken by these biomes. The growth time of this same is 2 to 4 days.

Vanity trees
Two additional tree variants were introduced in Journey's End: Yellow Willow trees and Pink Sakura trees, which serve mainly as decoration. Their respective saplings can be bought from the Zoologist and can be planted on any type of grass. For instance, their drops depend of the grass that they are planted on, which affects tree loot as well. If a vanity tree is planted on corrupt or crimson grass, one of the following things can occur: Both types of vanity trees have a chance to replace a forest tree during world generation, but not jungle trees or evil biome trees.
 * A sapling will disappear/fall down after certain time and yield nothing. However, there is a chance that the sapling grows before disappearing;
 * A fully grown vanity tree will disappear/fall down as well, but will drop Ebonwood or Shadewood, respectively, rather than nothing. It also will not drop acorns or tree loot, unless if the player harvests it before it disappears. If the grass beneath an existing vanity tree gets corrupted or crimson, this can also happen.

Corrupt and Crimson trees
Corrupt trees are purple trees found in the Corruption. They can be planted on Corrupt grass or Ebonsand in any biome. They drop acorns and Ebonwood. If planted on Ebonsand, they will be shaped more like a palm tree, but will still drop Ebonwood. Crimson trees are red trees found in the Crimson. They can be planted on Crimson grass or Crimsand in any biome. They drop acorns and Shadewood. If planted on Crimsand, they will be shaped more like a palm tree, but will still drop Shadewood. In both cases, if the ground beneath another tree type is "infected", the tree will be converted, though its shape will not change. The tree can similarly be converted back into a normal tree by using Purification Powder on them; again their shape will not change, but they will otherwise turn into the appropriate tree type for the block beneath them.

Jungle trees
Jungle trees are found in the Jungle, and another variant appears in the Underground Jungle. Jungle trees drop Rich Mahogany wood, but normally do not drop acorns; however, if a branch is hanging over a non-Jungle Grass Block, like regular Grass, this branch can rarely drop an Acorn. They tend to grow higher than normal trees: up to 21 blocks.

Surface jungle trees grow on Jungle grass, in two ways: Acorns can be planted as with most other trees, but jungle trees can also "self-spawn", like Cacti and Giant Glowing Mushrooms. Either way, the prospective tree needs the usual horizontal space, and a 24 blocks headroom to grow. This makes self-spawning fairly rare, because the larger jungle plants tend to appear first and block tree growth. Prior to 1.4, worldgen and self-spawning could create jungle trees under water, but acorns can't be planted under water. However, Underground jungle trees can only grow during the world generation.

In Hardmode, Corruption and Crimson spread through mud, replacing it with dirt, and Jungle trees turn into the appropriate infected trees. Because the ground is converted to dirt, cleaning either infection will turn an infected tree into a Forest tree, so Jungle trees cannot be restored once they are infected.

Bamboo trees
Bamboo trees are found in the Jungle. They only drop bamboo. Grow naturally when submerged in water. Requires a pickaxe to be harvested, unlike other tree-like plants.

Boreal trees
Boreal trees are found in the Snow biome. They can be planted on Snow Blocks in any biome. They drop acorns and Boreal Wood.

On the, the Snow biome contains Snowy trees which drop acorns and normal wood. Acorns planted on Snow Blocks in any biome will produce Snowy trees.

Palm trees
Palm Trees are found in the Ocean biome and Oasis mini biome, and can be planted on any regular Sand Block in any biome, though they require 30 blocks of open space above them to grow. They drop Palm Wood, and on acorns as well. There are also Corrupt, Crimson and Hallow variants, which drop Ebonwood, Shadewood, or Pearlwood respectively, rather than Palm Wood. Unlike other trees, Palm Trees require only one block of sand, and only one space is needed between the sapling and another object for the tree to grow. Palm trees usually drop only a single acorn with their wood. Planting an acorn in the Desert will yield a Palm Tree, not a Cactus.

Hallowed trees
Trees found in the Hallow have a taller and triangle-shaped foliage, and exist in many different colors: They may randomly be blue, red, light green, cyan, pink, magenta, yellow and purple. They can be planted on Hallow grass in any biome. Like with Corruption and Crimson, normal trees turn into Hallow trees when the Hallow reaches them, and can likewise be changed back by reverting the ground under them. Hallow trees drop acorns and Pearlwood. They are the only tree that is technically hardmode unlike all other trees.

Giant Glowing Mushrooms


Giant Glowing Mushrooms are handled by the game as trees, but they self-spawn (from Mushroom grass, given space) rather than growing from acorns. They grow differently underground (where the player will likely first find them) as compared to on the surface (if the player makes arrangements).
 * Giant Mushrooms on the surface (above 0 depth), will take a wider, often-branched form. When cut down, they will drop glowing mushrooms rather than wood. They rarely drop acorns or Mushroom Grass Seeds on the surface.
 * Underground Giant Mushrooms drop few Glowing Mushrooms (sometimes none) and they sometimes drop mushroom grass seeds. They have a different, branchless, appearance.

Gem Trees
Gem Trees naturally generate in the Cavern layer, and can also be grown by planting a Gemcorn on stone blocks in the Underground, Cavern, or Underworld layers. Despite being visually made of stone, they still require an axe to be harvested. There are seven types corresponding to the seven types of gems.

Gem saplings will grow at the rate of a normal tree sapling. The tree will drop 0-24 Gems of its type, 0-11 Gemcorns of its type, and 7-48 stone blocks when cut with an Axe. The type of tree is determined by the type of Gemcorn that is planted. Gemcorns can also be crafted from a gem and an acorn.

Gem Trees can be used effectively for farming gems in the early game, allowing earlier, albeit slow, acquisition of a Gem Staff, robe, and/or hook, making them especially useful for early game magic players.

Providing sunlight for Gem Trees is needless, they grow at the same rate with torches above them as they do without. However, since they must be grown in the Underground or Cavern layers, where there is not natural light, it may be beneficial to place torches anyways so that you can see them.

Gem Trees can be planted on converted stone blocks like Ebonstone Block and Crimstone Block, but they will grow into normal Gem Trees which drop normal Stone Block regardless of their basis.

While Gem Trees will never generate trunks wider than a block at their base, they still require the two adjacent blocks to be stone in order to grow. Once the tree is grown, the blocks can safely be replaced.

Trees as obstacles
Trees are background objects that do not affect player or enemy movement. They cannot be climbed or scaled with items such as grappling hooks (except for the ) or Climbing Claws, and blocks cannot be placed to overlap their limbs. However, it is possible to attach platforms to the trunk of a tree (except palm trees) and place blocks and platforms in front of the leaves at the top of the tree (or the caps of Giant Glowing Mushrooms). Furniture items placed on said blocks or platforms are obstructed by the leaves but still retain their full functionality (e. g. lightsources will still emit light as usual).

Acorns and Saplings
Planting an Acorn on certain blocks will create a Sapling that can eventually grow into a tree. An Acorn can only be planted on pure, Corrupt, Crimson, Hallowed, or Jungle grass, Snow, or Sand. (Not Mushroom grass, but see below). The tree will be of a type according to the block it was planted on, with random size and shape appropriate to its type. Saplings can be destroyed with a pickaxe or drill, but will not drop the Acorn item they were planted from. Saplings can only grow under the following conditions:


 * 1) The acorn requires one horizontal space of appropriate open ground on either side of its base, where it may put a stump
 * 2) The Sapling also requires at least two unobstructed (empty) tiles to the left and right to put branches, forming a 5-unit wide column. The ground to either side need not be the same grass/snow/sand block type as the Sapling's. The tree will not grow if it is not on grass/snow/sand blocks.
 * 3) There must be at least three open tiles between two Saplings or only one will grow into a tree. This matches the previous rules, i.e. each acorn needs both adjacent tiles free, which means the closest two trees can be is with three tiles between them.
 * 4) Small grass and tiny flower plants will not block a Sapling's growth, but almost anything that takes a pickaxe or drill to remove will do so: torches, platforms, Sunflowers, etc. cannot be within a 2-block radius. Dye plants, Mushrooms, Jungle plants or trees, cacti, etc. can also self-spawn next to a Sapling and prevent its growth, but once the blocking item is harvested, the Sapling can grow normally.
 * 5)  Most Saplings require at least 16 tiles of vertical clearance (32 feet by a Depth Meter) to grow into a tree, including the tile the Sapling occupies. Jungle trees require 24 tiles, and palm trees require 30 tiles.  Most trees require 9-20 tiles and jungle trees require 14-25 (if not provided the maximum amount of space, trees will still grow, but they may take longer to do so). In all versions, even when there is sufficient space, a tree's leaves may sometimes be big enough to clip through the roof.
 * 6) Most Saplings will grow indoors as long as there is either fence or no wall immediately behind the Sapling; unlike other Saplings, palm trees will not grow if there is fence behind the Sapling. All other walls are ignored.
 * 7) A Sapling needs to be above surface level . Acorns must be planted at "surface level" or higher, even if all other conditions are met.
 * 8) On the, Saplings must be off-screen in order to become trees. They will not grow when currently in view, unlike most other plants which can grow while being watched. (On the , trees can grow on-screen, appearing with a small shower of leaves. They also update the map data automatically, so it is possible to spot tree growth on the minimap or full screen map without needing to approach the sapling on these versions.)

Note that world generation can place trees in places where these conditions are not met, e.g. atop a single block of soil.

Self-spawning
Giant Glowing Mushrooms have similar space requirements to trees, but they cannot be planted; instead, they will "self-spawn", randomly appearing full-grown on Mushroom grass. Cacti need much less space, but can likewise self-spawn on any sand variant. "Infected" sand will spawn cacti which appear different according to sand type, but are otherwise identical. Jungle trees can also similarly self-spawn on Jungle grass (if there is space), but can also be planted with Acorns.

Shaking
Shaking occurs when a player hits the trunk or branches of a tree with an axe or chainsaw, but does not fully cut it down. In order for a tree to be shaken, it must both have a "leafy" top as well as not have any blocks in a two block radius from the top. In addition to this, players can shake a maximum of 500 /  200 trees a day. Once this limit is exceeded, shaking will not occur until the following dawn. Each tree can only be shaken once per day; subsequent hits will not generate additional shakes.

Shaking a tree has a chance to drop an item or object, or spawn an enemy or critter. The rates may differ per tree type and under certain circumstances, which is visualized in the table below. The icons in front of some of the chances denote the following conditions:

Chances without an icon apply if none of the respective conditions are met, where applicable.

Trivia

 * On the, a cloud in the shape of a tree can occasionally be seen in the background.
 * The normal forest tree is also a part of the Terraria logo.
 * A 2D sandbox game called The Blockheads, had Gem Trees before Terraria, however it is unlikely Terraria stole the idea of Gem Trees.