A Sub-Trope of Plant Person, this focuses exclusively on plant-themed characters who are child-like in nature and are still in the process of becoming mature. In the event that these characters do not age, they are considered ageless and embody the spirit of youthful innocence. Sometimes these characters do age, but because they are so small in size, don't get the chance to change their form or appearance over time. They often stand shorter compared to their larger trope cousins such as Treants, Cactus Person, Man-Eating Plant, and Botanical Abomination and if they do seem similar to them, aren't nearly as threatening in most cases. One notable exception is the Mandrake which is both innocent and dangerous, as their infant-like squeals are lethal to those afflicted by them.
These are the plants that represent the blissful joy of natural settings and the friendly childlike wonder that they invoke. Most of the time, they are allies of The Hero and are the ones that allow them to call the forest or other related setting their home, often becoming friends, in a way akin to wild animals that are friendly allies. The extent of their plantness can be downplayed to a few features such as the ability to do photosynthesis or defined by being actual plants with no animal-like qualities. Also includes societies of children who live in the woods or forest-like settings. Finally of note, these can be both masculine, feminine, or some neutral variation unlike their larger counterparts since this innocence downplays any gender roles commonly attributed to some of their plant counterparts. However, as they get older or even evolve their genders can become more defined if that happens at all.
Not to be confused with Plant Mooks. The far opposite of Fair Folk. Often overlaps with Born from Plants. See also The Ageless. Do not confuse with Mushroom Man.
Examples:
- Rena and other fairies from Guardian Fairy Michel act something akin to forest children and live deep in a forest away from other civilizations.
- Blue Exorcist: Zig-zagged. Nii is the spirit that Shiemi controls. It is a greenman spirit capable of producing plants and various vegetation that is a big help to Shiemi and is also capable of clocking demons and providing extra time through the use of wood. Her spirit is regarded as something of a baby.
- Since the Namekians technically qualify as plant people, Dende from Dragon Ball Z starts out as this trope. However, it is quickly subverted in the sense that his innocence is violated when Frieza launches an attack on his homeworld, with his minions killing his family and everyone else in his village. As a result, he is bitter to certain people, especially Vegeta and those that killed his kind. However, he is still very much a child like Gohan and retains this innocence in a few regards such as how he looks up to Nail and later Piccolo as a sort of big brother. There are also other child Namekians in the series that play this trope more straight.
- Cosmo from Sonic X is a child-like tree who is very innocent and friendly to those she meets, especially Tails. However, this gets darker when it turns out that she was once the same species as the Metarex, a power hungry robotic faction that destroyed her homeworld, while their leader Dark Oak had Cosmo acting as an unwitting spy.
- Mandrakes from Those Who Hunt Elves are tiny green elves with a rose-like flower and two leaves growing out of their heads. They sleep buried to the base of the flower in dirt and scream like children when disturbed.
- Even more than his canon example, this is subverted with Dende from Dragon Ball Z Abridged who is sassy, snarky, and not above using profanity on purpose. He also hates Krillin because the latter keeps calling him "Little Green" which he despises. He also has clear romantic feelings for Gohan which contrasts any innocence he might have.
- The title character of the short The Mandrake
is literally a baby.
- Toy Story 3: The Peas in a Pod, a toy plant plush, in Bonnie's house act very child-like and innocent.
- Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) as an inversion of this trope as he starts off as an adult-like figure before he is reborn as a child. As a child, he has a radically innocent personality until he begins to mature with time.
- Played for Horror in Little Shop of Horrors when the small seemingly sentient plant that Seymour treats like a baby starts to grow larger and more bloodthirsty, eventually turning against Seymour and trying to eat him.
- The Odd Life of Timothy Green: The titular Timothy is a child with leaves growing on his legs, who grew from a box an infertile married couple planted that contained their ideal traits for a child. Timothy is loving, friendly, and embodies all those ideal traits.
- Pan's Labyrinth: Ofelia is given a mandrake, a small plant child that is supposed to make her sick pregnant mother feel better. The mandrake is practically a baby and is completely vulnerable in Ofelia's care.
- A Song of Ice and Fire features the Children of the Forest who are among the first to inhabit Westeros. They are believed to have bodies that are noticeably plantlike with greenish skin who live in the woods. More ancient than the rest of humankind, they are believed to be extinct and nothing more than legend Though a single village is later discovered by Bran and his allies. However, they're only called "children" by humans because of their small stature.
- In the Tamagotchi series, Violetchi, also known as Flowertchi, is a Tamagotchi with little flowers growing on her head. She's kind and sweet and is known to be quite fond of flowers, being a Caring Gardener who has a vast knowledge of them. In the 2009 anime, flowers can literally change her personality in a split second based on their meaning.
- The Legend of Zelda: the Kokiri and Koroks inhabit forest-like settings and retain a strong youthfulness.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Great Deku Tree is the guardian spirit of the Kokiri and until his untimely death, they are allowed to live in blissful innocence. The Koroks expand on this concept further in that they are more dramatically plant-like in appearance, an adaptation induced as they are the descendants of the Kokiri. Furthermore, they are always seen as childlike and youthful in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, with Makar in particular acting as an ally of Link.
- Also explored in 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as they remain fairly youthful even as some grow to larger sizes.
- The Sims: More pronounced in The Sims 2, at the beginning of a Plant Sim's life, they start off as toddlers, who need to learn the normal skills their human counterparts need, such as learning to walk and talk. And can even be done in The Sims 3 as unlike the 2 version, where they age from toddlers straight into adulthood, they age like they are normal Sims.
- The Pikmin from Pikmin qualify as is, even if they are aliens who remain small in stature and appearance. Furthermore, they act fairly child-like throughout the game and follow Olimar around diligently.
- Pokémon: Roselia, Bellossom, Lilligant, and Phantump all embody child-like qualities compared to other Pokemon. Phantump in particular is the spirit of a child who died in the forest. Exeggcute also qualifies as a series of plant-like eggs that embody different emotions that then evolve together to form Exeggutor, its grown-up evolution.
- Final Fantasy XIV has the Sylphs: three-foot-high flying vaguely-humanoid bundles of leaves who live deep in the forest. They're very androgynous and in fact it's difficult to discern if they even have a concept of gender, considering that they don't use any pronouns, instead referring to themselves as 'this one' and others with epithets such as 'dancing one' and 'steel-clad ones'. They're known for being mischievous pranksters toward those who don't take the time to get to know them by bringing gifts and dancing for them, but are otherwise quite charming and agreeable.
- Seasons has Aden, a sweet, innocent, leaf-covered boy whom Fletcher tries to help.
- Flora of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors was born from botanical experiments by Joyce's father, and is a naive little girl.
- ThunderCats kinda zigzags this with the Petalars as they quickly age to death.
- The Dreamstone had these in the episode "Planet Prunus" in Season 4, but they were Beware the Nice Ones who only became less child-like when outsiders visited their planet, leading to the show's protagonists having to wear a special necklace to keep the plant aliens in their docile state. Not so for the bumbling Harmless Villain characters The Urpneys, who didn't follow this social etiquette, and saw this become an Inverted Trope.
- In Wizards, Nari of the Eternal Forest is seen as the most child-like of the Arcane Order, a set of elemental and ageless beings, and is noted to have a fondness for children who'd play in her domain. Her innocence later led her to try and leave her group when she decided their plans to wipe out humanity for the good of magic was too extreme.
