Flower

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Evil Flower=

Fern=

"I am filled with the irrational urge to stomp upon it."

- Maxwell

Flowers are found in Grasslands, Forests, or Savannas. They cannot be found in Marshes or Rockyland. When picked, they restore 5 Sanity and produce Petals, which, when eaten, restore 1 Health. There are 10 different kinds of flowers, but all have the same effect.

Flowers serve a variety of purposes. Picking 12 of them for their Petals allows the creation of a Garland, which provides a Sanity boost over time in addition to the 5 sanity gained from picking each flower. This is especially useful early on in the game.

Flowers also spawn Butterflies, which can be killed for their Wings or captured in a Bug Net. Captured butterflies can be planted anywhere to produce a new flower, thus making each of these items renewable. Homeless bees will also produce flowers over time if they are near some. Many flowers can be planted together to build a butterfly farm, an area where butterflies can easily be killed for their wings. Large groups of flowers are also useful for Honey production. Building Bee Boxes near such fields increases the speed at which the bees produce honey.

​Evil Flower
Evil Flowers are a type of flower that spawn around the Wooden Thing, its Things, Totally Normal Trees, and Maxwell's Door. Evil Flowers provide 1 bunch of Dark Petals when picked. Evil Flowers act the same as regular flowers, spawning butterflies and attracting bees. New Evil Flowers can spawn if an unpicked Evil Flower is pollinated by a homeless bee. If no unpicked Evil Flowers are available, there is no way to obtain more.

Evil Flowers drain 25 Sanity in a minute when stood by (effect can be stacked), 5 when picked, and 5 more if the player eats the Dark Petals it provides. Since the Dark Petals do not have any sort of purpose when eaten and only drain sanity, it is advised that the player not eat them unless they want to purposely lower Sanity to fight Shadow Creatures or move Obelisks.

Fern
Ferns are naturally-spawned objects which are similar to Flowers. They grow randomly in Caves and more abundantly in Ruins and can be picked to obtain 1 Foliage.

When eaten, the Foliage restores 1 Health.

Flower
Flowers can be manually culltivated by planting living butterflies. Using a Bug Net to capture any number of butterflies, the player can right click them on the ground to plant them as they would plant pinecones or grass tufts. One butterfly can be planted to create one flower in a location of the player's choosing. The physical area occupied by the flower is very small, allowing for densely planted flower gardens.

Cultivation of flowers is of interest because of their sanity bonus when picked and use for crafting the Garland and the Pretty Parasol (Found in the Reign of Giants DLC), however the long term use of cultivation is the creation of efficient honey farms through the use of Bee Boxes, for which an ample supply of flowers is necessary.

Because flowers spawn butterflies, cultivation of a large flower bed can usually proceed very quickly, provided the player has sufficient materials to build new bug nets.

Evil Flower
Evil Flowers are the only means to acquire Nightmare Fuel without fighting Shadow Creatures or harvesting large numbers of Beardlings, both methods requiring lowering Sanity to dangerously low levels or using the expensive Nightmare Amulet; and going underground to the Ruins to mine statues when the Nightmare Cycle is at its peak, which is even more dangerous than the choices aboveground. For this reason, it may be of interest for players to cultivate Evil Flowers as a means of supplementing their supply of Nightmare Fuel. Unlike normal Flowers, Evil Flowers cannot be manually planted. Instead, it is necessary to employ Bees to cause additional Evil Flowers to spawn.

Begin by crafting a Bug Net and capturing some number of Bees. Once captured, these bees become "homeless" and will not return to their hive. Release these bees near some existing evil flowers and they will begin to visit them as they would normally. It is also necessary for the player to be near the area the bees are working, since the bee's AI routine will not run if the player is too far away.

Bees must visit 6 different flowers before they can plant another flower. The flower that is planted will depend upon which type of flowers the 6 were, so as soon as you have 6 evil flowers in the area it is a good idea to eliminate any normal flowers so the evil flower chance becomes 100%. Most often the bee will plant the flower after the 6th flower is visited, but there is a small chance it will visit another flower or land without planting. Clearing the area of trees, grass etc. will also make it easier to spot newly spawned evil flowers.

Reign of Giants
During Spring, new Flowers will spawn without the aid of Butterflies or Bees. During a full moon, Flowers will turn into Evil Flowers, and return to normal afterwards, though there is currently a bug that causes them to remain Evil Flowers until the player exits and re-enters the game.

Trivia

 * Evil Flowers were introduced in the A Little Rain Must Fall update.
 * Evil Flowers resemble stylized flowers that can sometimes be found adorning fabrics and wallpaper, and which can be faintly seen on Maxwell's walls in some of the William Carter Puzzle images.
 * Ferns glow a reddish color when the Ruins are in the deepest stages of its nightmare cycle.
 * Ferns were originally green.
 * WX-78's qoute when examining says: "HEY THERE FLOWER... WANNA KILL ALL HUMANS?" This a possible refrence to Bender from Futurama who says, "Hey there baby... Wanna kill all humans?"