Flora, in the Space Stage.
Flora (known as Plants) are type of objects which exist in Spore as food source for herbivores and omnivores. Flora distinguish with 3 categories; shrub, small tree and tall tree.
Appearances
Cell Stage
In the Cell Stage, Green plant matter and later, Seaweed, are used as food for herbivores and omnivores. Carnivores will simply ignore them.
Creature Stage
In the Creature Stage, flora like shrubs and small trees produces the fruits and can be picked up and eaten by omnivores or herbivores. There are sometimes pieces of rotting fruit. Rotting pieces of fruit appear to be inedible, but can be consumed. Tall tree has no purpose.
Tribal Stage
In the Tribal Stage, like in Creature stage, flora produces fruit (except tall trees) and an omnivorous or herbivorous tribe can pick fruit from floras. Other tribes often have fruit in their food piles.
Civilization Stage
In the Civilization Stage, flora plays no important role other than decorating the Homeworld.
Space Stage
In the Space Stage, however, flora are essential to stabilizing a planet's atmosphere. There are three different types of flora: shrubs, small trees, and tall trees. Every planet can have three of each if fully terraformed to a T-3. Each Terra score level requires one more of each of the three kinds of flora, plus two herbivores and a carnivore. Some empires will offer the player missions to retrieve a flora.
Galactic Adventures
In Galactic Adventures, flora are used as decorative props in adventures. There are two types of flora, flora that are in the "Fixed Object" category, and flora that are procedurally generated by the game in the "Flora" section in the Terraforming menu. The way Flora are generated in the "Flora" Terraforming menu is very much like (or most likely the same) how they are generated in planets. Like T-3 planets, the Terraforming Menu only will support only three plants in the three categories. Flora as props do not need to be in the "Flora" Terraforming menu to be used as a prop. They can be interacted with goals, unlike other flora.
Trivia
- The Flora Editor was intended to be included in Spore, but was ultimately cut, and unplayable without the use of hacks.
- There is a known glitch in the Space Stage. When a plant is being deposited, it grows. If you aim the abduction beam towards the sky, and keep the plant in the air long enough, it gets bigger. When you set it down on the planet's surface, the plant will be much larger than the rest surrounding it.