Trees

Trees

• [[File:|Trees item sprite|link=]]

Statistics

Type	Background object
Placeable	✔️
Rarity	00*

• Internal Tile ID: 5, 323

File:T1.2tree.png

All tree types. From left to right: Purity/Forest, Corruption, Crimson, Hallow, Snow, Beach, Jungle/Underground Jungle, Mushroom.

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, destroyed with the use of explosives, or by pouring lava on their bases. Destroying or chopping down a tree will yield many units of their respective wood, an essential crafting material, and have 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; 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.

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

Trees as obstacles

With the exception of Living Trees (discussed further below), trees are background objects that do not affect player or enemy movement. However, torches can be placed on any type of tree, whether it is the Living variant or not.

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 is possible in some versions however, Mobile excluded, to attach platforms to the trunk of a tree). 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, as they may obstruct building it. When digging upward to the surface, trees may obstruct your digging, so they need to be destroyed in that instance, too.

Growing conditions

Newly planted Saplings, left to right: Forest, Corrupt, Crimson, Hallow, Boreal, Jungle, Palm

The smallest enclosures allowed for growing trees: without saplings (top), planted saplings (middle), grown trees (bottom).

Acorns and Saplings

Planting an acorn in certain blocks will create a Sapling that can eventually grow into a tree. An acorn can only be planted on grass, Corrupt grass, Crimson grass, Hallowed grass, Jungle grass, Snow, or Sand. (Not mushroom grass, but see "self-spawning" below). The tree will be of a type according to the block it was planted on, with random size and shape appropriate to their type. Saplings can be destroyed with a Pickaxe, but will not drop the Acorn 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. Note that worldgen can place trees in places where an acorn would not grow, such as atop a single block of soil.
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 block type as the sapling's.
3. There must be at least three open tiles between 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 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. 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 planted on grass underground or below will not grow, even if all other conditions are met.
8. On the  PC version,  Console version,  Mobile version,  Old Chinese version,  tModLoader version, and  tModLoader 1.3-Legacy version, trees update the map data automatically, so it's possible to spot tree growth on the minimap or full screen map without needing to approach the sapling. Trees can also grow on-screen on these versions, appearing with a small shower of leaves. On the  Old-gen console version,  Windows Phone version, and Nintendo 3DS version, however, 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 you watch.

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 appropriate surface blocks: Mushroom grass for giant mushrooms, or any sand variant for cacti. "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).

Variants

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 when the area they grow on is overtaken by these biomes.

This variant has also 6 different appearances.

Corrupt & 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. They are converted from normal trees when corruption spreads upon them. 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. They are converted from normal trees when crimson spreads upon them. If planted on Crimsand, they will be shaped more like a palm tree, but will still drop Shadewood.
It is possible to convert both into normal trees again by using Purification Powder on them.

The wood produced from said trees can be used to create Iron strength tools, as well as their variants of armor, furniture and workbenches.

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.

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. Worldgen and self-spawning can create jungle trees under water, but acorns cannot be planted under water.

In Hardmode, Corruption and Crimson spread through mud, replacing it with dirt, and Jungle trees turn into corrupted trees. Because cleaning corruption will turn a corrupted tree into a Forest tree, Jungle trees are lost forever when they become corrupted.

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, pink, magenta, yellow and purple. They can be planted on Hallow grass in any biome. Normal trees turn into Hallow trees when the Hallow reaches them. Hallow trees drop acorns and Pearlwood.

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 Nintendo 3DS version, 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 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  PC version,  Console version,  Mobile version,  Old Chinese version,  tModLoader version, and  tModLoader 1.3-Legacy version 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. It should be noted that planting an acorn in the Desert will not yield a Cactus, but rather a Palm Tree. Palm trees usually drop only a single acorn with their wood.

Giant Glowing Mushrooms

Main article: Giant Glowing Mushroom

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 do not 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.

See also

Cactus

Main article: Cactus

Cacti generate with the world and self-spawn over time on various types of sand. They will appear differently depending on the type of sand (plain/crimson/corrupt/hallowed) but in all cases they will yield cactus blocks when harvested with an axe. They cannot be planted (and do not grow acorns), but will spawn naturally given flat sand and sufficient room. Cactus will break if the sand block supporting them is removed.

Living Trees

Main article: Living Tree

Living Trees are huge tree shaped structures made of solid blocks that can be found in the forest biome and are created during world creation. (on Small worlds they can extend into the range of Harpies).

Similarly, Living Mahogany Trees can be found in large Underground Jungle cavities.

Achievement

Timber!! • “Chop down your first tree.”

Chop down a tree.

Category: Collector

Notes

• Lava will instantly destroy trees.
• It is possible to attach torches to the trunk of any tree except palm trees.

History

 PC version

• Desktop 1.3.2: Trees now grow even when visible on a player’s screen, and appear with small showers of leaves.

• Desktop 1.3.0.1:
  • Palm, Corrupted, and Crimson trees drop Acorns now.
  • Wood drops along with Acorns, rather than either/or.
  • New variant for Boreal Trees introduced.

• Desktop 1.2.4.1: Fixed bug where trees won't grow behind biome Wooden Fences.

• Desktop 1.2.4:
  • Palm Tree introduced.
  • Boreal Trees now drop Boreal Wood.

• Desktop 1.2.3:
  • Acorns can now be planted on all types of grass.
  • Replaced Tree 9's graphic.

• Desktop 1.2:
  • Living Trees introduced.
  • Multi-colored wood introduced.
  • Variations on the normal tree top sprites added.

• Desktop 1.1.1: Boreal Trees introduced.

• Desktop 1.1:
  • Trees can now potentially grow 1 block higher (except for Jungle Trees, which can now grow another 5 blocks higher).
  • Hallowed Trees introduced.
  • Tall grass and flowers no longer obstruct tree growth, making trimming the grass unnecessary.
  • Acorn saplings require 2 tiles between saplings to grow instead of 3.

• Desktop 1.0.5: Corrupt and Jungle trees no longer drop acorns.

• Desktop 1.0.4: Jungle trees added.

• Desktop 1.0.3: Trees become Corrupt when the Corruption reaches them instead of being destroyed. Corrupt trees become un-Corrupted upon purification.

• Desktop-Release: Introduced.

 Console version

• Console 1.0.933.1: Made changes from PS4’s 1.0.750.0 update. ()

• Console 1.0.750.0: ()
  • Palm, Corrupted, and Crimson trees drop Acorns now.
  • Wood drops along with Acorns, rather than either/or.
  • New variant for Boreal Trees introduced.
  • Trees now grow even when visible on a player’s screen, and appear with small showers of leaves.

• Console 1.07:
  • Palm Tree introduced.
  • Boreal Trees now drop Boreal Wood.

• Console 1.06:
  • Acorns can now be planted on all types of grass.
  • Replaced Tree 9's graphic.

• Console 1.02:
  • Living Trees introduced.
  • Multi-colored wood introduced.
  • Variations on the normal tree top sprites added.

• Console-Release: Introduced with mechanics and variants from Desktop 1.1.1.

 Mobile version

• Mobile 1.2.11212:
  • Palm Tree introduced.
  • Boreal Trees now drop Boreal Wood.
  • Acorns can now be planted on all types of grass.
  • Replaced Tree 9's graphic.

• Mobile 1.2.6508:
  • Living Trees introduced.
  • Multi-colored wood introduced.
  • Variations on the normal tree top sprites added.

• Mobile 1.1.5536:
  • Trees can now potentially grow 1 block higher (except for Jungle Trees, which can now grow another 5 blocks higher).
  • Hallowed and Boreal Trees introduced.
  • Tall grass and flowers no longer obstruct tree growth, making trimming the grass unnecessary.
  • Acorn saplings require 2 tiles between saplings to grow instead of 3.

• Mobile-Release: Introduced with mechanics and variants from Desktop 1.0.5.

Nintendo 3DS version

• 3DS-Release: Introduced with mechanics and variants from Desktop 1.2.