Trees

Trees are the largest plants in Terraria, appearing only at the surface and often in clusters with similar height. Trees can be chopped down with an axe or explosives. Destroying or chopping a tree will yield many units of wood, an essential crafting material, and give a chance of dropping one or more acorns that can be planted to grow more trees. Larger trees will yield more of these two materials when removed, since the amount of wood and acorns obtained from a tree depends on its size: one unit of wood will drop for each block of tree (including branches), and one acorn may drop for each leaf patch, excluding the top patch of leaves.

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. A faster but more dangerous alternative to cutting down trees is placing a bucket of lava at the very base and picking it back up immediately. Another way is placing around some bombs between two or three trees.

Tiles beneath trees cannot be destroyed while the tree stands.

Trees as obstacles
With the exception of Living Trees (discussed further below), trees are background objects that do not affect player or monster movement.

Trees cannot be climbed or scaled with items such as a grappling hook, nor can blocks of dirt or other walk-on surfaces be placed to overlap their limbs or foliage. It can sometimes be necessary to chop down a tree that is next to a cavern entrance or cliff in the early game in order to replace it with a ladder of blocks that will allow scaling of the steep surface; this becomes unnecessary when the player obtains a grappling hook, Climbing Claws or other items that allows improved jumping or flying.

Trees must be removed when building houses that overlap the space they cover or when digging up from underground to exit to the surface.

Growing conditions
Planting an acorn in grass will create a Sapling that will eventually grow into a tree of a random size and shape. Saplings can only grow under the following conditions:


 * 1) A planted acorn can only be planted on a dirt block covered with grass, corrupt grass, crimson grass, hallow grass, a mud block covered with jungle grass, or on snow.
 * 2) The acorn requires one space of open ground to either side.
 * 3) There must be at least two open tiles between saplings or only one will grow into a tree. This matches the previous rule, i.e. each acorn needs both adjacent tiles free, which means the closest two trees can be is with two tiles between them.
 * 4) The acorn requires at least 32 feet (i.e. 16 tiles) of vertical clearance to grow into a tree.
 * 5) An acorn will not grow indoors - all background walls or overhanging ledges must be removed, and if you have a ceiling it must be at least 32 feet above the block where the acorn was planted as measured by a Depth Meter (e.g, if you are planting an acorn at 300 feet above, there may only be blocks at 332 feet or higher directly above it in order for it to grow into a tree).
 * 6) Acorns will not grow in the presence of torches, wood platforms or sunflowers within its 2-block radius.
 * 7) Saplings must be off-screen in order to become trees. They will not grow when currently in view, unlike most other plants which can spawn while you watch.

Saplings can be destroyed with a Pickaxe.

Corrupt & Crimson trees
Corrupt trees are purple trees only found where there is Corruption. They behave like normal trees, dropping Ebonwood but no acorns. They are converted from normal trees when corruption spreads upon them. Being that the Crimson is the variant of the Corruption, the Crimson trees grown in the same conditions, however dropping Shadewood instead of Ebonwood. It is possible to convert both into normal trees again by using Purification Powder on them.

As of patch 1.2.3, Corrupt and Crimson trees can be planted using acorns in corrupted or crimson grass, following the same rules as trees grown in grass.

The wood produced from said trees can be used to create Iron strength tools, as well as Ebonwood (or Shadewood) furniture and workbenches.

Jungle trees
Jungle trees are darker green, wider trees only found in the jungle. They spawn randomly or can be planted on jungle grass wide enough for a tree to grow on, and may also spawn under water. Jungle trees also grow higher than normal trees: up to 21 blocks. Jungle trees drop Rich Mahogany wood, but like corrupt trees will not drop any acorns.

In hardmode, Corruption spreads through mud, replacing it with dirt, and jungle trees turn into corrupt trees. Sadly, because cleaning Corruption will turn a corrupt tree into a normal tree, jungle trees are lost forever when they become corrupt.

Since Jungle trees are competing for place with fast growing bushes, a viable method for farming them is to submerge the area in water. Foliage introduced in 1.2 will not grow in water deep enough that fish can spawn, allowing only jungle grass and trees to spawn.

Hallow trees
Trees found in the Hallow have a taller and triangle-shaped foliage, and exist in many different colors: blue, red, light green, cyan, magenta, yellow and purple. Normal trees turn into hallow trees when the Hallow reaches them. Unlike jungle or corruption trees, hallow trees drop acorns when chopped down.

As of 1.2, Hallow trees drop Pearlwood instead of regular Wood.

Snowy trees
Snowy trees are only found in the Snow biome. They can be chopped down with an axe for wood and planted by placing acorns on snow. As of patch 1.2.4, it will drop Borealwood instead of regular Wood

Palm trees
Palm Trees are only found in the Ocean biome, but can be planted on any normal Sand Block in any biome using acorns.

Living Trees
See article: Living Tree

Living Trees are huge trees that can be found in the Overworld and are created during world creation. Unlike regular Trees, Living Trees are quite large, reaching high into the air (on Small worlds they can extend into the range of Harpies), with their trunks being several tiles wide. They are also not background items like normal trees, meaning that in order to pass them, a player must tunnel through them, go underneath them, or go over them.

Giant Glowing Mushrooms
See article: Giant glowing mushroom

These "trees" are different from others because they take on the persona of a Giant glowing mushroom, and are, but are treated by the game as trees when they grow on the surface. Unlike the other kinds of trees, they cannot be planted. Surface mushroom trees grow on mushroom grass above sea level in a similar way to jungle trees, and can grow branches. When cut down, they will drop glowing mushrooms rather than wood. They do not drop acorns or mushroom grass seeds on the surface. Underground giant mushrooms are different in that they do not always drop glowing mushrooms, and they sometimes drop mushroom grass seeds. They have a different appearance and cannot grow with branches.