forum What types of flora should I incorporate in my world?
Started by @T1mmy
tune

people_alt 65 followers

@T1mmy

I'm good with potions, spells, and usually beasts, but I can never come up with different types of flora. Do you have any suggestions? My world is completely fantasy and a lot of it is set in wild areas where there would naturally be millions of plants. All I've come up with is a type of flower made out of a tin-like substance that can be melted down into a type of metal. :-/ I would really appreciate your help with boosting my ideas, and I'm really open to anything from huge and menacing to cute and dainty! :D

Ember Ris

I have a few questions that might help…

Are there plants that will affect the human body? (eg. plants with thorns, poisonous sap, pollen that puts you to sleep?) Are any plants used in potions? Are they rare? Common? What effects do they have?

Are there plants that use magic? Do plants float in the air? Glow? Catch fire? Are there "sentient" plants? What environment do these plants live in?

Try looking at different types of plants in the natural world - how do plants spread their seeds? Get nutrients? Try looking at plants that would live in your setting, and tweaking them.

A couple of years ago, my biology class made us do a project where we were given different sets of environments, and we had to design plants and animals for it. Does your area get a lot of sunlight? Broad-leaved trees. Does it snow? Conical trees. Underground? Mushrooms! Mushrooms that make you hallucinate? That would be funny… Stuff like that.

I hope I helped!

@CoffeeShopNotebook

I have absolutely no idea why but when I saw that you asked for flora ideas, the first thing I thought of was, you gotta have some exploding plants. Look up peat moss. It's itty-bitty and they shoot little spores everywhere to plant their seeds, but I just thought… miniature fairy bombs…

@TinyMagicWolf pets

Ok, hear me out:
A large, scarlet, rose-like flower that grows small, dark blue berries on its thick stem. These berries, along with the flower's petals, can be used in potions, in food, to calm beasts, and anything else you may think of. The flower is pretty uncommon, but it grows year-round in temperate areas.

Thing is, this flower has an "evil twin". The flower looks exactly the same, it grows in the same place, and the berries it grows are exactly the same. However, these berries are very poisonous. You cannot eat them, you cannot cook with them, and you need to make sure to wash your hands after messing with them because even the juice that covers the outside is dangerous. You may use them in potions or to kill beasts, or any other dangerous thing, but even one is enough to kill a man within 30 minutes so be careful.

The only way to tell the good flower from the bad flower is by boiling three
of the berries with some of the flower's petals. If the petals AND the berries float in the water within 10 minutes, it's good. If only the berries float, it's bad.

I haven't settled on the flower's name yet, nor have I used it in a story, but this is an idea I've been working on for a while now. You can change or improve it if you like, but, I dunno, here it is. Bleh.

@Yamatsu

I like that idea! It adds to the mythos and rarity surrounding the plant. In terms of a name, how about "Vixen Orchid" and "Succubus Orchid" for the twin?

When it comes to exploding plants, I think of Monster Hunter and the fact that ammo is made from flora and fauna. Huskberries and Bone Husks for casings, then Fire Herbs, Bomberries, Scatternuts, Pin Tuna, Wanchovies, Whetfishes, etc. help make the ammo itself. Heck, most of the items are made from those kinds of things! Though, it must suck to go on a walk through the mountains, step on a bug, and subsequently nearly blind yourself because it was a Flashbug, or go through a berry patch and find that those massive pink stains are NEVER coming out of those boots.