40d:Tower-cap

Tower-caps are a type of mushroom-like subterranean tree. Once fully grown, they can be designated for wood cutting and produce tower-cap logs. Tower-caps will grow only if the site contains an underground river or underground pool. Such features can be located using the site finder and on the local view during embarkation, if the relevant init and world generation parameters are set. As with normal trees, they take about 1 and a half years to fully grow.

Underground tree farms

If you have discovered an underground river or pool, tower-caps will start spontaneously growing in muddied subterranean areas (rock or soil), or any subterranean soil, though muddied soil has a denser production than dry soil. The distance or path to the underground river does not matter. It is thus possible to make a (big) safe underground chamber where your dwarves may harvest wood without exposing themselves to the dangers of the surface world.

On the subject of spawning tower-caps, Toady said:

Right now, you can't plant tower-caps or bring spawn along, so you need to find a cave river or cave pool, in which case they will start growing underground if it's all working. It's trickier to find such things, so it's mostly impossible to do.¹ Later, you should be able to plant them. There are no arbitrary vegetation caps now².

^{1: Note that it is working and that underground rivers are not that rare any more.}

^{2: The "arbitrary vegetation caps" comment is referring to the old limit of 200 tower caps growing by the cave river in the mud.}

To design a tower-cap "farm", refer also to the irrigation article.

Beware that young tower caps, like young trees, are fragile and will be quickly killed if repeatedly walked upon.

Wood FAQ
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Is it possible to grow trees underground?
How long do tower-caps take to grow?
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