Tree

This article requires clean-up to meet the quality standards of the Animal Crossing Wiki.

Trees are a town feature prominent in every Animal Crossing game. Although many trees are generated at the time of town creation, further saplings can be bought or fruit planted to create additional trees.

All trees have leaves, except perfect fruit trees that have expired. The leaves of "oak" and fruit trees change according to the season, with the former showing a cherry pink form during early April. Cedar trees do not change colour in the year, but become decorated with lights during snowy portions of December leading up to Toy Day.

Life Cycle

Once planted, trees grow within 3 days. Trees cannot be planted in a square adjacent to buildings, walls, water, or other "hard" obstacles including other trees (they can however be planted adjacent to bushes). If planted in these areas, tree saplings will die the day after, and disappear. Occasionally, saplings will die even in open areas.

An exception to this rule is in the GCN games. Saplings planted adjacent to buildings will grow, but only for one day. These trees remain small and stunted until the building is removed. Trees that are normal size will revert to this small size if a building appears next to them, such as when Nook's shop expands in size or if a villager sets up house.

Trees that have started or finished growing will not die naturally, and must be cut down with an axe if they need to be removed. When cut, a stump remains, which must be dug up with a shovel. Occasionally, the stump will feature a unique pattern, but only in New Leaf. The frequency of rare patterns is increased when a golden axe cuts down the tree, and even more so when a silver axe is used. Stumps can be sat on in later games, and also serve as the spawn point for longhorn and violin beetles in some games.

Other Uses

Trees can be shaken to dislodge objects. Fruit trees will drop fruit, while normal trees may drop Bells, beehives (bees included), furniture (2 per day), and, during the fall, acorns. Bagworms and spiders may also appear when shaking trees, hanging from the branches when disturbed.

Many bugs are only found on trees, or their stumps. Cicadas, beetles, and some other insects such as stinkbugs and walkingsticks are only found hanging from the front of the trees. Purple and birdwing butterflies will only appear at the canopy of a tree (GCN only, birdwing is not tree-restricted in later games). The coconut crab is only found inside coconut tree branches.

Types

Hardwood Tree

The hardwood trees (also sometimes called oak trees) are a recurring familiar symbol is the series. The leaves change colors to match the seasons. Their leaves usually change later than fruit trees. Hardwood trees will turn pink during the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Trees are required in order for acorns to spawn during the respective time period (only in Wild World).

Fruit Tree

Main article: Fruit

This tree resembles the hardwood tree but bears three pieces of fruit. Unlike non-fruit trees, acorns will not spawn under this type of tree. The types of fruit trees are Apple, Cherry, Pear, Peach, Orange, Mango, Durian, Lemon, Lychee, and Persimmon (Mango, Durian, Lemon, Lychee, and Persimmon are exclusive to New Leaf only). There is a glitch in Animal Crossing: New Leaf in which a fruit tree holds less than three pieces of fruit.

Perfect Fruit Tree

Perfect fruit trees are exclusive to New Leaf. They can be created by planting a perfect fruit that matches the town's native fruit. Perfect fruit has different colors than its normal counterpart. They sometimes appear as one of the fruits on a native tree; this also happens near the creation of the town. Perfect fruit sells for six times as much as the regular variant. This means that perfect fruit sells for 600 Bells in towns in which they natively grow, and 3,000 Bells in towns in where they are foreign. However, the perfect fruit tree will die after up to seven harvests, leaving the player with a bare, dead looking tree. One of the fruits will be rotten and will require a fee to be disposed of. If the rotten fruit is planted, it will appear to be a wilted sapling and will die the next day.

Cedar Tree

These unique evergreen trees prefer the top half of the village mostly in higher altitudes and as such do not grow well near the coast. Around late December, Toy Day and New Year's Eve they are decorated with Christmas lights.

In New Horizons, clifftops on the Deserted Island will be populated solely by these trees by default. During the fall season, they may drop pine cones when being shaken, on top of the standard sticks that can be received normally. These pinecones can be used to craft exclusive items for the season.

Palm

Main article: Palm

Palm trees grow only two fruit. They can only be planted on or near the beach. There are two types of palm trees: Coconut palms, and Banana palms. There are some beetles that only appear on palm trees, such as the Hercules Beetle, Cyclommatus Beetle, and Goliath Beetle.

Coconut

This coastal palm tree bears coconuts. They can only be planted near the beach. The coconut itself can be obtained through various means depending on the game.

In Wild World and City Folk, a coconut will usually wash up on the player's beach at least once a week. In GCN games, coconuts can only be obtained by visiting the Island, and only sell for 300 Bells (unlike in later versions of the game when they sell for 500 Bells).

Banana

A new addition to New Leaf, the Banana Palm functions similarly to the Coconut Palm. It, along with the coconut, can be acquired by visiting the Island.

Money Tree

Main article: Money Tree

A money tree is a rare and infamous tree that bears money as its fruit. They can be grown by burying bells in the ground with a golden shovel. To maximize potential return and minimize expected loss, the player should bury 30,000 Bells.

The chances of making a profit with a money tree is very risky. Even if the tree fully grows, there is only a small chance that the money will grow on the tree.

Golden Tree

468px-Af goldenshovel — The player equipped with a Golden Shovel in front of a Golden Tree.

This Golden-colored hardwood tree only appeared in Animal Forest+, Animal Crossing, and Animal Forest e+. It could be grown by planting a shovel in a Glowing Spot. Once the tree is fully grown, golden shovels grow from it.

Trivia

In New Leaf, the leaves on the trees that don't have fruit are a different color than the leaves on fruit trees; the leaves of fruit trees are generally a slightly darker green, yellow, or orange depending on the season.