Remember druids can cast Goodberry? Well, how about every berry is grown as a goodberry! Or a goodpotato and goodtomatoe!
Obviously, weaponized plants you could use to repel a zombie invasion.
Ok, this is just to mess with people: a cursed banana. If you eat it, you turn into a banana. If someone eats your polymorphed form, they turn into a banana. And so on.
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Drugs.
Lots and lots of drugs.
Time for actual ideas... let's see.
A black mushroom with vivid yellow splotches that, when eaten, provides the effects of lesser astral projection for one hour.
A tree with deep blue leaves and bright green wood whose bark whose smoke projects a major image of the user's hallucination, duplicates a mind fog spell, and dazes the user for 2d4 hours.
A nut that, when ground into a paste in the presence of olive oil, can be rubbed onto the skin to produce intense synesthesia and scatter the user's consciousness across time, making them confused but giving a +2 insight bonus to initiative, AC, and Reflex saves for 1d3 hours.
A pale orange melon with a very hard rind the size of a halfling that acts as a potent aphrodisiac. You are only meant to snort a very small amount of the dried rind, which functions for 1d4 hours. If you actually eat the flesh, you are affected by the unnatural lust spell for the next day.
A shrub whose leaves allow you to change shape, as beast shape I, for one hour, but you will always be a shade of lavender.
A tree with fruit similar to a coconut with leathery shells that, when cut in half, is filled with ice cream. The flavor of the ice cream and toppings used vary by breed.
A shrub with hard, translucent gourds whose juice comes pre-fermented and tastes strongly of anise and cloves. 140 proof.
Super effective food with perfect nutritional balance to specific needs : growth, pregnancy, elders, soldiers, etc. Abusing on these foods could cause the occurrence of a caste system.
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Why do so many go drugs or negative?
Luminescent plants that grow huge bulbs on stalks; when the sun goes down these bulbs glow providing street illumination. The bulbs can also be harvested and used to provide the effect of a light spell for 24 hours.
Constant infusions of Plant Growth enables whole city blocks to be built into giant shrubs or trees
One of the city's defenses is Missile Toe; tri-berried boughs which have been affixed to spefically enchanted arrows. When these arrows are fired the shaft disintegrates into an explosion of eldritch force that splits into 3 Magic Missiles that unerringly strike their targets.
Ticklevines; specially trained assassin vines which grapple opponents but not to murder. Instead they are grown in defensive walls to hold and tickle their enemies. Once a successful opponent is grappled the plant also releases a euphoric vapor that, along with it's wriggling leaves induces laughter (Assassin Vine + hideous Laughter). These non-lethal plants serve the dual purpose of guarding places around the city which need protection from the very citizens who live there, such as banks and businesses. Guards in town are trained to investigate instances of crazed laughter as a possible sign of attempted break ins.
Self-irrigating hedges are grown along hedgerow irrigation ditches. These beautiful shrubs have trumpet blooms growing on them that serve as conduits for summoning water. These flowers then spill their liquiid into the ditches to irrigate the fields and gardens of the city.
Firesnap Dragons - violets whose unopened bulbs can be plucked and popped for random but beautiful firework effects such as a flash of light and sound; a puff of multi-colored smoke or dazzling pinwheels of sparks. These are always harmless and instantaneous, used purely for the entertainment of children (Prestidigitation)
Beige Mold - like brown mold but dealing no actual damage to living tissue, this mold merely lowers ambient temps no lower than 40 degrees. Brewers have learned to cultivate this moss and use it in their libations for cold brewing and serving chilled drinks (Prestidigitation)
Then of course there's leaf armor, ironwood, darkwood, Bloodoak bark that might provide anti-bleed effects, perhaps healing herbs that actually cast cure spells on users, mushrooms that induce Enlarge Person spells, etc.
Because if you could make magic drugs, why in Abaddon wouldn't you?
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Wow Redman, just... wow. When I think "magical plants" I immediately go all Disney Fairies, Epic and other Tolkein elves. I think of societies that live in harmony with enchanted flora like tree-cities and plant-phones where you talk into the bulb on one vine and hundreds of feet away you voice is heard out the another one.
Ipslore is keepin the drug thing alive, got it...
Sure, you could do that, but to me, that essentially sounds like taking the real world and spray-painting plants on. Telephone plants, street-light plants, car plants, house plants, whatever. I'm not saying they're bad; in fact I'd be interested in seeing a plant or combination of plants that could approximate an internal combustion engine, but it's not my cup of tea.
I prefer thinking about how to use plants for stuff that we can't do- coconuts with ice cream inside, for example.
This one isn't magical, but it's a real plant and could be "doctored" a bit to make it magically delici... deadlier than it already is.
Now that I could get behind ItR. Burn some leaves, get high? Sure, we could do that right now IRL. Burn some leaves, have their smoke allow communion with the dead or cool onto your body to provide a brief period of natural armor... that sounds awesome.
Also a coconut filled with ice cream!
Other ideas:
- Arrowroot: carrot-like plants whose roots actually form into shootable arrows or bolts
- Nuts that crack open like eggs and the oily fluid inside is a potent grease substitute
- Pine needles that, when steeped in hot water yield a paste which retards light; anything rubbed down with it gains +10 to stealth for 1 hour
- Baked potatoes: potatoes that, when harvested are steaming hot and topped with your choice of cheese, chilli, broccoli sour cream and chives
- Apple pie trees: you get the idea
- Polyfruit bushes: eat the fruit, turn into an animal! Gardeners trim the bushes into topiary forms revealing the kind of animal you'll become when eating from that particular bush
- Tempest in a teabulb: annual bulbs that only polenate during torrential storms; the bulbs can be harvested before their first bloom and then smashed to release a terrible thunderstorm
Back in the 2e days there was an online freebie called "The Netbook of Herbs", if I recall correctly. It was full of neat ideas. I may still have a copy of it somewhere.
I think it can be found here, with scads of other 2e player created netbooks.
Ironhide tree- A large, slow-growing tree with dense wood and cherry-red blossoms. When five pounds of its wood is pulped and mixed with one pound of its seeds, plus an alchemical brew whose composition is a secret of the Bloodforest elves, it forms a paste that can be rubbed onto a Medium creature as a full-round action.
For one hour, it acts as armor and feeds on the wearer's spilt blood to offer improved protection when it's needed. At first, it acts in all ways as a chain shirt. The first time the wearer takes more than 20 points of damage in one round, it feeds on the shed blood and grows thicker, acting as a breastplate. If the wearer then takes another 20 points of damage in one round, it acts as half-plate.
If the wearer takes no damage for one minute, it regresses back into a chain shirt.
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Increasing longevity and replacing damaged limbs and organs - A docile variant of the bodythief plant is cultivated that allows people to produce limbs, organs or even fresh young bodies to house their old minds without losing their personalities in the process.
Energy production - A non-ambulatory hybrid of cyanobacteria and a shambling mound is produced that absorbs carbon to produce massive "wings" of algae that serve as solar-collecting panels. The hybrid acts as a high concentration photovoltaic system that converts sunlight into electricity and lightning rods are used to attract electricity to the mound during storms in order to supplement the solar collection. The stored energy is then siphoned from the plant to provide warmth and light to the community. (Pseudo)Science!
Space exploration! - I won't take credit for this one, but Spelljammer was filled with awesome elven spaceships grown from plants and crystals. The gadabout allowed a single wearer to safely travel through the vacuum of space for a limited time but could also be used to explore the ocean floor or other environments where breathable air was scarce.
Public transportation - using Plant Growth, Wood Shape and wind-related magic, massive reeds can be produced that can serve as pneumatic tubes for transporting people through town.