Once you reach the end of the flora stage, you soon unlock the option to convert your Oxygen boosting flower seeds into trees.

However many people are concerned by the fact flower seeds boost Oxygen by multiple hundreds of percent, while tree seeds don't even pass 200%.

In this guide I will explain why this concern is unwarranted as well as provide exact numbers for every Oxygen producing machine with each plant.

There are many flower and tree seeds available, however the number of these are limited to what you can scavenge from chests and wrecks. They cannot be produced in your base as of the version this guide was written in.

Flower seeds can be placed in Vegetubes to produce Oxygen passively, or Flower Spreaders which require an area around of them to grow flowers upon to do the same.

As long as a Spreader has room to grow plants, it will produce the maximum amount of Oxygen and the 'Growth" stat while observing the machine will rise to 100%. The actual number of grown plants does not affect the machine's production.

Tree seeds are created by a flower seed, mutagen, and tree bark in a DNA Manipulator and are used in Tree Spreaders, that function the same as Flower Spreaders.

All seeds have a passive boost to the Oxygen production of the machine they are placed in. The list is as follows.

Seed Lirma: Base seed, no passive boost.
Seed Shanga: 150% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Pestera: 200% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Nulna: 300% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Tuska: 400% boost to Oxygen generation

The following two seeds are only found after passing the Flora terraformation stage. A limited amount of the plants will sprout in certain areas of the map and must be harvested

Plant Orema: 450% boost to Oxygen generation
Plant Volunus: 500% boost to Oxygen generation

The final seed is only found within golden chests, and a single one found in the basement of the desert battleship wreck. There are currently 12 in total.

Golden Seed: 600% boost to Oxygen generation


All of the above seeds can be mutated into the following tree seeds.

Seed Lirma > Tree Seed Soleus: 125% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Shanga > Tree Seed Linifolia: 125% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Pestera > Tree Seed Aleatus: 125% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Nulna > Tree Seed Cernea: 125% boost to Oxygen generation
Seed Tuska > Tree Seed Elegea: 125% boost to Oxygen generation
Plant Orema > Tree Seed Humelora: 150% boost to Oxygen generation
Plant Volunus > Tree Seed Aemora: 150% boost to Oxygen generation

Though not listed in the recipe list, the same recipe works for Golden Seeds

Golden Seed > Tree Seed Pleom: 200% boost to Oxygen generation

There are also tree seeds found in storage chests that do not have a corresponding recipe and do not correspond to any flower seed.

Tree Seed Iterra: 125% boost to Oxygen Production

There are 3 types of machines currently in the game that produce Oxygen via seeds inserted into the machine. Vegetubes are glass tubes that grow a single flower within. Flower Spreaders grow a ring of flowers on the ground around them. Tree Spreaders grow a ring of trees around them.

Each one of these machines has multiple tiers, each tier produces more base oxygen than the last. The Oxygen boost from seeds applies to the base generation of the machine they are inserted into.

The following will be a list of all machines, and the amount of Oxygen produced with every single seed possible. All measurements are in parts per quadrillion, or ppq, which is what the game measures Oxygen in on the terraformation screen and the stat it uses in the construction menu.

Vegetube T1
Base/No Boost: 0.15 ppq/s
150% Boost: 0.225 ppq/s
200% Boost: 0.3 ppq/s
300% Boost: 0.45 ppq/s
400% Boost: 0.6 ppq/s
450% Boost: 0.675 ppq/s
500% Boost: 0.75 ppq/s
600% Boost: 0.9 ppq/s

Vegetube T2
Base/No Boost: 1.2 ppq/s
150% Boost: 1.8 ppq/s
200% Boost: 2.4 ppq/s
300% Boost: 3.6 ppq/s
400% Boost: 4.8 ppq/s
450% Boost: 5.4 ppq/s
500% Boost: 6 ppq/s
600% Boost: 7.2 ppq/s

Vegetube T3
Base/No Boost: 13 ppq/s
150% Boost: 19.5 ppq/s
200% Boost: 26 ppq/s
300% Boost: 39 ppq/s
400% Boost: 52 ppq/s
450% Boost: 58.5 ppq/s
500% Boost: 65 ppq/s
600% Boost: 78 ppq/s

Flower Spreader T1
Base/No Boost: 161 ppq/s
150% Boost: 241.5 ppq/s
200% Boost: 322 ppq/s
300% Boost: 483 ppq/s
400% Boost: 644 ppq/s
450% Boost: 724.5 ppq/s
500% Boost: 805 ppq/s
600% Boost: 966 ppq/s

Flower Spreader T2
Base/No Boost: 325 ppq/s
150% Boost: 487.5 ppq/s
200% Boost: 650 ppq/s
300% Boost: 975 ppq/s
400% Boost: 1,300 ppq/s
450% Boost: 1,462.5 ppq/s
500% Boost: 1,625 ppq/s
600% Boost: 1,950 ppq/s

Tree Spreader T1
Base/No Boost: 920 ppq/s
125% Boost: 1,150 ppq/s
150% Boost: 1,380 ppq/s
200% Boost: 1,840 ppq/s

Tree Spreader T2
Base/No Boost: 1,950 ppq/s
125% Boost: 2,437.5 ppq/s
150% Boost: 2,925 ppq/s
200% Boost: 3,900 ppq/s

Tree Spreader T3
Base/No Boost: 12,500 ppq/s
125% Boost: 15,625 ppq/s
150% Boost: 18,750 ppq/s
200% Boost: 25,000 ppq/s

So as can be seen when you compare ALL the numbers, a Tier 2 Flower Spreader is better than a Tier 1 Tree Spreader if you are using a plant with more than 400% boost.

So a Tuska, Orema, Volunus, or Golden plant is better as a flower in a T2 Spreader than a tree in a Tier 1 spreader.

However, once you unlock Tier 2 Tree Spreaders every single flower seed is better as a tree than a T2 Flower Spreader with the best seed, the golden one.

So overall it is much more worth it to start converting flower seeds into trees once you have a T2 Tree Spreader.

And when you unlock the Tier 3 Tree Spreader? The number are much, much higher than anything a flower spreader can do. Reaching somewhere between 15 and 20 times greater than the flower variant.

Note, some items require flower seeds in crafting recipes, like the biomass rocket. You can use a Recycler to convert a tree seed back into a flower seed, mutagen, and tree bark at any time. So there isn't really anything lost by mutating plants as you can just undo it. But when it comes to Oxygen producing machines trees and Tree Spreaders are far better than anything you can do with flower seeds.